Bing.

The last stop of my tour of Online Consumer offerings is from Microsoft is Bing.

Bing seems to be the catch-all brand for your more "traditional" web services. Services like Search, online maps, images and so on. I suppose the main difference between Bing and Live is that Bing does not require a login (although you can login with your Live account).

Many reviewers have said good things about Bing, and yet users seem to steer clear of it. Today, I will use it and see what it can do.

Firstly, MS have tried to create versions of Bing tailor-made for local use. Login to Bing USA and you will see local news, traffic and so on. However not all countries have received the treatment, and I am stuck with the "International" version. You are of course free to use whatever version you like, but if you use a version not meant for your country, the localised info will obviously not be of use to you.

The services offered on the US version:
Search
Image search
Videos
Shopping
Local news
Maps
Travel
Entertainment
Translator
A few other small services

The International version has:
Search
Image search
Videos
News
Translator
Maps

Being an "International" user I will use that version.

We start at search. let's say I intend to visit the War Museum on my next visit to Bloemfontein.

This is the main reason anyone uses an online service like this. Type in a thing you want to know about and there you go.
Here, I tried to search for the War Museum in Bloemfontein. The results are the usual stuff.

Not to draw a comparison with Google this early on, but a small map showing me where to find the museum would have been nice. Otherwise it worked well. As usual with other search engines, clicking on the links on top opens the same results. When I click on "Images", I get images related to the War Museum.

The Image page itself has a nice range of options in the sidebar, but most people will only gloss over them.


Now, are there any interesting videos related to the Anglo-Boer war?

Granted, this war is not exactly an international hot topic at the moment, and the museum is just one building, but given it's impact on an entire people (not to mention it's effect on worldwide politics of that era), I expected more than three hits. The controls on the left are a nice touch.

Another nice touch, clicking on a video goes straight to a "player" page with related videos. Funny, there are suddenly a lot more, but I take it these are from a wider search term than "war museum in Bloemfontein".

Now, how to get there? We go to maps.

I am naturally taken straight to a regional map as I open the page. I hack in my search terms and we get...

...no result, however the site does latch on to the city name, and at least shows me a birds eye view.
Maybe we should use a specific address? Didn't we get the museum web page from the initial search? We sure did. A quick copy and paste and...

..nope! OK maybe just the street name onwards?

Nope again!

Now this degenerates into a block-by-block search for the bloody street name. A few minutes later and...

...found it. That grassy spot in the middle, there, THERE! ...see it? Yes, that's it!

OK, so maybe special buildings with no street numbers and with an entire street all their own are kinda hard to find. Now we need directions.
I decide that I will first spend time on Naval Hill, so I need directions from there to the museum.
I right click on the museum and choose "directions to here", same on Naval Hill and choose "directions from here" and I get what I ask for within seconds.

I don't know the city that well, but it at least seems like no directions were given that require special powers, like flying from bridges. This should get me from A to B with little fuss.
A VERY nice touch here is the ability to modify my route by dragging any part of it.

So what are my conclusions? Well, I'm really not sure. Al you need is there, but it just hasn't got the same "flair" if you will that Google has. Still, if you really want to use Microsoft (or if your company is one of those that have a MS-only policy) it will serve you well enough.

I'm sticking to Google for now.

Crap, I suppose I will have to do a Google post as well. Where will I find the time...