Last week Microsoft launched their new search engine, strangely named Bing. The online press is littered with bloggers dissection and viewpoints – none of which I think is particularly interesting. Comparing Bing with Google is like comparing Apples with Oranges – no one is going to replace the mighty Google with straight search and therefore the only way for Microsoft to begin to compete with Google and Yahoo! (which is their clearly stated target) is to offer a richer information experience – and to this extent I believe Bing may potentially provide this.

I say may potentially provide this – as at this stage I just don’t necessarily see it. There are some supposedly cool things about Bing – but at present they are pretty much limited to the US so I can’t even tell their relevancy. Apparently for example, if you type in “weather” as well as search results it will give you an actual weather forecast for your region based on your IP address – this did not work for me.

The most interesting possibility for me however is Bing Travel. Once again most of the services don’t actually work outside of the US, but if they do, it stands to be an extremely useful tool and something that may have quite large impacts on the travel industry. Last year Microsoft acquired a company called Farecaster which through using historical data supposedly analyses an airline ticket price and forecasts whether you should purchase that ticket now. Bing Travel has integrated this technology into the search results as well as an immediate scanning of airline and travel booking sites to get the best fares. The Bing Travel home page looks more like a travel booking website than a search engine. Choosing to search for a flight from Los Angeles to Phoenix Arizona gives me search results from numerous websites in ascending price order and in the prominent left corner a 7-day price prediction that says buy this ticket now as fares are expected to rise by $50 (of which the algorithm is 80% confident of being right). That is pretty cool.

Microsoft reports research that says that 42% of all travellers 1 to 4 weeks researching their travel a staggering 17% a month or more. They also say that 52% search 3 or more websites before booking their airfares (Google reports similar stats saying: that an average holiday booking online takes 29 days of research from 12 separate searches with the user on average visiting 22 different travel websites.). Bing Travel is aimed at giving more power to the traveller and reducing their need to do so much search to get the answer they want. Beautiful if workable – although I would question if this takes the fun out of the whole travel research process (isn’t the wishing and dreaming of travel nearly as much fun as the excursion itself).

Bing Travel also incorporates the ability to filter your searches based on airline classes or how many stopovers you want etc; or in the case of hotels amenities such as restaurants and swimming pools; and it incorporates a host of content from MSN Travel. In most ways Bing Travel hardly distinguishes itself from an awesome travel portal – but the reality is that it is not a travel portal it is a search engine and this supposedly means it will not be limited to the content and databases from which it will pool endless amounts of content from. With rate predictions amongst other services only available in the US currently there seems a very long way to go before Bing Travel really has an impact on travel downunder, however, should it continue to develop on our initial glimpses I think it is potentially an exciting prospect.

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