HispanicBusiness

Some heavy hitters in the media-tech world have given Bing high marks for its approach to travel searches.

"Bing's travel search is a clear winner that sets it far ahead of Yahoo and Google," raves Wired.com.

Specifically, Bing lets users research prices for different airlines without having to toggle back and forth between different Web sites. Even more impressive, it also includes a price predictor estimating the best time to purchase a plane ticket -- a smart incorporation of technology from Farecast, a service that Microsoft acquired last April.

Bing also seems to beat Google on restaurant searches.

Take French restaurants. Bing not only calls up the names of the establishments in a given metropolitan area, but also allows users to sort them according to price, parking, reservations or atmosphere.

Wired lauded this particular feature as well, calling it "cool."

On the local restaurant search, though, I have a minor complaint. When searching for local restaurants in Santa Barbara -- where HispanicBusiness.com is headquartered -- I noticed that Bing fails to clearly separate the sponsored listings at the top of the results page from the rest of the listing below.

I typed "Santa Barbara restaurant" into the search engine, and then clicked the "local" link in the upper-left-hand portion of the screen. This produced a curious listing in the top spot: "Perris Valley Skydiving."

Last time I checked, Perris is near Los Angeles, which is 90 miles away from Santa Barbara. And although the establishment does appear to have a sports bar and grill, that doesn't seem to be the main thrust of the business. (I would think that food and skydiving is a risky combination, but what do I know?)

Granted, this was one of the sponsored listings, meaning "Perris Valley Skydiving" apparently shelled out money for the prominent placement. The regular listings, located below "Perris Valley Skydiving" and a couple other sponsored listings, all seemed sensible. But I'd have been less confused had the sponsored links been placed inside a box with a different color.

In any case, for all the positive press on Bing, some experts doubt there's a burning need for a new search engine.

"If you're expecting Bing to be a Google-killer, reset your expectations," said Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land. "Google's one-stop shopping for many types of search. Or a Swiss Army knife that does many different things. It might not be the perfect tool for a particular task, but it's often good enough to get the job done--and so it keeps getting used."

And while Wired's review -- titled "Bing, But No Boom" -- is mostly positive, it did give Bing a few dings.

On design, Wired faulted Bing for not being intuitive. Some of its best features -- such as the "local" and "my listings" links allowing a user to drill deeper when searching for things such as restaurants -- are not easy to find.

"Unfortunately, the interface is confusing and you could easily miss this
feature if you didn't know to look for it."

Wired also lamented how Bing's local search failed to turn up some popular local fixtures.

At the end of the day, Bing has the critics pleasantly surprised, but not blown away. The product has officially crashed the party, and the fact that nobody is laughing it out the door is already a success. And let's face it: the true test has little to do with the opinion of the know-it-alls anyway. The true test will involve seeing how the product plays with the know-nothings -- you know, the millions of us for whom the word "Google" is the go-to research tool for everything from the trivial to the obvious.

Nobody ever says, "Why don't you Yahoo it." Maybe Bing will be different. Let's try it on for size: "Why don't you Google or Bing it?"

Actually, "Bing me," has a nice ring to it, though it may not be an accurate description of the process. Would multiple searches be a "Bing binge?" Should one shout "Bada Bing!" when victorious in finding something?

Undoubtedly, the search engine's amount and manner of usage will evolve the surrounding vernacular. ("Vernacular" -- per Bing -- "the common spoken language of a people, as distinct from formal written or literary language.")