Prince McLean
A historical analysis of Microsoft's web search brands published by RoughlyDrafted shows that the news fervor surrounding Bing is wildly overstated.
Few pundits are issuing weekly updates on Safari's progress over Internet Explorer, yet Safari has incrementally advanced over the past five years, rising from a 1.5% share of the browser market in 2004 to the current 8.5% share, based on historical web statistics published by Net Applications.
In contrast, Bing, the latest version (not unlike Safari 4.0) of Microsoft's search websites, represents a business that has actually shrunk significantly since 2004. Microsoft's combined search properties, including MSN Search, Live Search, Windows Live Search, and Bing, dropped from a 14% share of search in 2004 to the current 5.9%.
The graphic below shows Net Application's historical figures for the top three web search and web browser vendors (Microsoft's search properties are combined together). The left end of the chart shows an annual scale, the right end shows monthly scale. Google is consistently increasing its share of web search despite Microsoft's bundling of search with Windows, while IE is dramatically losing share despite its monopoly-tying.
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48 Comments
According to Bloomberg, Bing has gone up since its launch. The site also states they have stolen marketshare from Yahoo, while Google remained at 65%.
I know that Bing was previously Live Search, Windows Live Search, and MSN Search, however, since MS has not only rebranded their search, but also made significant changes to the service, I think we should wait and judge it on its own merits over the coming months. That said, the marketshare MS has already taken could easily be “new” product rush, not an appealing advancement in web searches. Time will tell.
It's a little early to judge Bings impact.
According to Bloomberg, Bing has gone up since its launch. The site also states they have stolen marketshare from Yahoo, while Google remained at 65%.
I know that Bing was previously Live Search, Windows Live Search, and MSN Search, however, since MS has not only rebranded their search, but also made significant changes to the service, I think we should wait and judge it on its own merits over the coming months. That said, the marketshare MS has already taken could easily be ?new? product rush, not an appealing advancement in web searches. Time will tell.
Bing's not the only alternative to Yahoo and Google.
http://www.cuil.com
According to Bloomberg, Bing has gone up since its launch. The site also states they have stolen marketshare from Yahoo, while Google remained at 65%.
Are those USA figures?
I don't know people in Europe who swear by anything other than Google. The only time Microsoft Live Search and now Bing get used is when a user is on Internet Explorer and types a web address IE can't handle or find.
Of course that's Safari usage on Windows, Mac, iPhone, and iPod Touch combined. When that's said then Safari's gains are not surprising.
I love Safari 4.0 as it is everything the Safari should have been in the beginning. Yet, I use IE on my work Windows laptop even though it has Safari loaded on it. I'm not crazy about the look of Safari on Windows, so I don't use it there. Apple really needs to rethink its look (maybe it is just the XP version that is ugly).