mrluc

Cha-Ching: Microsoft Pays Users to Search with Bing

On Aug 11 03:04 AM Dan Katz wrote:

> mriuc: Of course you can sort by price. I think you just haven't
> figured out how to use Bing. There are two ways to access cashback,
> one is through regular search and one is going directly to their
> cashback section (bing.com/cashback). Trying using the search
> there instead. Microsoft aren't idiots and are pretty good at building
> software and websites.

This is an example of a well-known truth from software design that is completely under-appreciated outside of that world: you shouldn't have to *learn* to use search. Shopping, even less so.

It doesn't seem that hard; what's the harm? Could I have figured out how to sort by price? Did I figure out why their search behaved irrationally, returning 0 results one time and many results after performing the action again? Sure.

But these things have very real effects on the users of a website. They're measurable; there are measurably, significantly lower attach rates in applications that get these kinds of "effortless use" things wrong. (See the book "Don't Make Me Think")

Microsoft is *building* share here, so at the moment, their offering is dragging users into bing for the CB whether the users want to go or not.

Compare bing to Amazon.
Compare them to google (search, gmail, maps)

People will prefer Amazon and google after using them and bing -- and they may not even KNOW why!! They'll feel like those companies are 'friendlier', somehow; or they'll feel more productive in those apps. The users have no idea what's going on -- but if you don't trust the research, trust the empirical research of the market.

Microsoft knew how to throw resources into making a WORD PROCESSOR that would have been a revolutionary word processor 20 years ago.

Web software has such a higher standard than anything on the desktop, because your competition can crush you if their product is the tiniest bit better than yours.

In my opinion, Bing is currently a sin against user interface design, and a demonstration that MS has learned very little.

Cha-Ching: Microsoft Pays Users to Search with Bing

I disagree -- heartily -- that this will have lasting impact other than perhaps enticing google into doing something similar -- ie, giving the customer the cash back.

From a usability point of view ... look, I just tried using bing.com, and it's beyond awful. No sort by price button in the Shopping area?

What?

That's just the first thing that jumped out at me; there are others. Like if you're searching in "cash-back" mode, and there's nothing, it'll say there are no results that match that query ... but it won't add "... in cash back mode; click here to perform a regular shopping search". Or, better still, just show regular shopping results and put a notice at the top that says 'no cashback items found'.

You know what they do instead?

You search twice, on the same term, and once it gives you no results and the next time, results, with no explanation.

(the explanation: you've mysteriously left cash-back mode, which you didn't know you were "in" to begin with because it's hidden over on a column on the left, instead of up by the search box where I expect to see the options for the actions I'm taking, namely, searching).

These things are ... are ...

Well, they're things that google and amazon and even ... well... not ebay, so much ... understand about the user experience. Oh, Apple, too.

I know these businesses seem to share some kind of snobby, latte-sipping quality that probably turns off Business Types, but the things that geeks and makers like about these companies are reflections of abilities, built deeply into the companies, to understand the user experience -- which is everything in software.

Bing is:

1. hilariously worse than Amazon as a store
2. tragically worse than Google as a search engine, and
( even paying out of its own pocket ),
3. miserably worse than FatWallet.com at saving me money.

That's an entrepreneur-coder's take on why MS will continue to be dominated in the new software.

Too Much Oil (and Other Fuels)

I agree that it now seems even more unlikely that oil will move dramatically in either direction in the next 3 quarters.

The current volatility looks like it's here to stay, though. Right?

I hope so. I like it.

Cloud Computing: What Are the Barriers to Entry and IT Diseconomies?

I have to disagree about Microsoft being on the cutting edge of cloud computing infrastructure! In fact, I cannot disagree strongly enough.

Google built a file system, from the ground up, that is built for large-scale engineering efforts (massive block sizes, forward-only write-only with periodic cleanups, built for redundancy and scaling).

They START with manageable infrastructure.

Then, they tell their programmers: okay. We are not going to screw up our infrastructure just because you learned that SQL is a good primary datastore in college. Be good enough to make software that runs on our manageable infrastructure.

And so far, it's working.

Microsoft is simply not in the same league as google, infrastructure-wise.

Unfortunately, I'd say that even the majority of programmers don't understand that this is so, or why it is so.

Boy. I should really write up a kind of "ubergeek overview for investors" that highlights why google's so impressive. Not to argue that google's a screaming buy at the moment, but more to explain why I think the respective valuations for google and msft are more or less fair (the p/e disparity, etc).

Can Anything Displace the iPhone in Consumer's Eyes?

I just thought I'd mention the pre-order numbers for the G1:

1.5 million. The first two batches of pre-orders are sold clear through, and they may be trying to do more. That's a surprise, I think, to everyone -- although clearly nowhere near current iPhone numbers.

Now. What does it mean?

From a development standpoint, I would mention that it's far easier to whip up an application for Android than for any other competitive platform. But what's driving the pre-orders, and what does it mean for google?

It's simple. Pre-orders are driven, not by people seeing a better iPhone, but by people seeing a simpler and cheaper *netbook*. The keyboard. The choice of a mildly tacky, "desktop" background. The integration with google's net-apps. It's "netbook", not "iPhone".

People, if you can use it to surf the web and type and cut and paste ... then you can use it to write documents and emails and do anything you can do online. It's more a computer than a piece of consumer electronics. That's what people want to buy.

Writing word processors and other apps for the Android system may, in fact, become a great market! Awesome. We all hope so, because Apple has got a lead-pipe lock at the moment, and competition amongst cutting-edge mobile development is important. But the apps for Android are not the determinants of whether or not the platform will succeed; for the user, the question is whether or not the phone provides a pleasant usability experience for things like typing and viewing on the web, and for companies, does the software make my sky-high development costs a bit more manageable?

And the answer to the second is yes; consumers are hoping that the answer to the first is yes also.