paidContent - Bing Watch: NYT Praise, Search Share, Hotmail Tie-In, 36-Hour Outage
This story was written by Joseph Tartakoff.
—36-Hour Outage: Fourth of July week-end started with a downer for Microsoft’s revamped search engine when one of Bing’s much-hyped “decision categories”—Travel—went offline for 36 hours because of a fire at a Seattle data center. Via TechFlash.
—More praise: Just over a month after the WSJ featured its own adoring review of Bing, the NYT chimed in with its own. David Pogue’s bottom line: “If you value your time, you should give Bing a fling.”
—Mixed numbers: Microsoft’s share of the search market dropped in June, compared to May. But Hitwise said that Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) had nevertheless increased its share of the search market each week during the month.
—Google’s take: Google (NSDQ: GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt says there hasn’t been much impact on Google’s market share since Bing’s launch. Via Bloomberg News.
—Bing finds a friend in Hotmail: Microsoft’s Hotmail might no longer be a sexy brand name—but it remains the most popular e-mail system in the world, according to comScore (NSDQ: SCOR). And from within Hotmail, users will now be able to use Bing to find maps, movie times, or other content to add to messages. More details on the Hotmail blog.
By Joseph Tartakoff