Microsoft’s been on a promotional tear with its new “decision engine” Bing, a search engine that intends to do what Microsoft Live could not: compete with industry titan Google. Beyond some unique additions to the standard search interface, Microsoft has invested heavily in marketing: campaigns have included a live Bingathon and fast-forwarding commercials on The Daily Show.
Apparently, the Bing wave has caught Google’s attention. In a report published in the New York Post, Google has assembled a small team of top engineers to respond to the emergence of Bing, led by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Is Google just being vigilant, or is the tech juggernaut genuinely concerned that Bing could be the entity that finally challenges it for market share?
The NYPost story has a few interesting tidbits. Key among them is that Google is making upgrades to its search engine in response to Bing, and that Sergey Brin himself is leading the team:
Brin, according to sources inside the tech behemoth, is himself leading the team of search-engine specialists in an effort to determine how Bing’s crucial search algorithm differs from that used by the company he founded in 1998 with Stanford University classmate Larry Page.
“New search engines have come and gone in the past 10 years, but Bing seems to be of particular interest to Sergey,” said one insider, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The Post has a knack for spin, and while Google may not be gripped by fear, we’d think it only prudent for the search leader to consider what threat, if any, Bing poses to its dominant market position. Google is not ignorant of new search competitors: in fact, one of its most recent products, Google Squared, is in part a response to the computational capabilities of Wolfram Alpha.
The bottom line: we’d be more concerned if Google was not paying attention to new competitors.
Also see: Google vs. Bing: The Blind Taste Test
译文:
谷歌、必应大比拼！谁怕谁？
微软重磅推出其全新“决策引擎”Bing（中文名为“必应”），该引擎旨在提供Live无法实现的功能，并与搜索巨头Google进行角逐。除在标准搜索界面上添加了一些特有模块外，微软还重资开展了营销活动，其中就包括两档现场秀活动Bingathon和fast-forwarding（译者注：这两次活动的视频在美国知名视频网站Hulu上的点击率非常高。这个网站目前只针对美国国内点击收看，在中国无法收看，但如果使用美国代理IP就没问题）。
显然，BING一经推出，GOOGLE就十分重视。据《纽约邮报》报道，GOOGLE已经着手应对BING的问世，由GOOGLE共同创始人Sergey Brin带头，组建了由顶级工程师组成的精英团队。这是否表明GOOGLE开始警觉了呢？或者说，GOOGLE是否在担心科技的强大力量会使BING分走它的那块肥肉呢？
《纽约邮报》相关花边新闻不断，重点却是报道GOOGLE团队应对BING的出现对自己的搜索引擎也做了不少的升级，而Sergey Brin本人也亲自带领着这个队伍。
GOOGLE内幕消息称：为了一探究竟，Brin带领这批搜索引擎精英，想要看看BING这个对手到底跟自己亲手建立的GOOGLE有什么不同；1998年，Brin与其斯坦福大学同学Larry Page共同创立了GOOGLE.
一位不愿透露姓名的内部人员说：“在过去10年，不少的搜索引擎出现在人们实现里，然后慢慢被人们淡忘；但这一次Sergey似乎对BING非常感兴趣”。
这篇文章写的很有技巧，留有余地，因为GOOGLE有可能也并没有怕谁，我们大不了理解为搜索引擎领跑者对BING有可能带来的威胁的一种担心。GOOGLE也并没有忽视新对手的出现：事实上，GOOGLE产品之一的Google Squared,从一定程度上就是对计算机型智能搜索引擎Wolfram Alpha的对抗。