The Power of Bing

www.Bing.com - Microsoft's browser-come-lately has debuted to positive reviews. People like the colorful photos. They like the embedded travel search. Heck, they even like the search algorithm (deemed competent in comparison to-, but not better than, Google's). Today, however, there may be actual news; Bing has apparently surpassed Yahoo search at StatCounter - check it out here.

Before you go wondering if Bing really is the next big thing since email, know that MS has replaced MS Live Search in Internet Explorer with Bing. Right - if you just type words instead of a URL in the address bar of IE - you are now using bing. Considering how many people use IE, that's a big deal. Oh, and there are reports that IE 6 users (including yours truly at work - even though IE is up to version 8 now) are forced to use the service for search even if they change their Internet Preferences to default to another search engine. Still feeling sorry for Microsoft with its antitrust problems? Bundling = power.

And a final note: Beating Yahoo at search is likely beating Andy Roddick at internet speeds. Yahoo doesn't focus on search any more. It is the go-to place for niche information, such as finance, fantasy sports, etc. Heck, it is even taking significant market share from eBay.