Bing – 25 Fantastic Things about Bing!

Bing has made a bit splash since it’s introduction in early 2009. I recall having someone from Bing coming in giving a speech on what we could expect from them (at that time it was Beta) and I was already intrigued. The mock ups he introduced is slightly different than what we see now but overall the message is the same: Make searching easy, reliable and fun! Their new UI design achieves this but at the same time it teaches people the moment you are taken to http://bing.com , never heard anyone say Google does that.

I made a list here of 25 things I like about Bing and list of 8 things I would like Bing to have.

1. Background Images – Everyday Bing has a beautiful breath-taking image as their background. Missed yesterday’s picture, look on the bottom right corner and Bing will let you view the last 7 background images you missed.
2. Background Images – Hover over the background image and Bing will give you some interesting tidbits  about the image or a related topic.
3. Save Bing’s Background images - want to save the background images, easily done by right-clicking and saving the image. This is much better when it was in the beta stages where I would see the search box would be part of the image.
4. Enter a question directly - Type a question directly into the search box and it will display the most popular queries users enter.
5. Control on Search Suggestions – with Google, the pre-populated queries from your search come with two buttons (Google Search and I’m Feeling Lucky), with Bing I love that it gives you the option to Turn off the pre-populated queries.
6. Show more results – If you want to view more than 10 results per page, Bing provides you a preference page whereby you can tweak your search index to display up to 50 results per page.
7. Built-in Calculator Function – you can directly enter simple mathematical calculations into the search box.
8. Currency Calculator - Type is 1 x in y where x and y are currency symbols/abbreviations to get an automatic currency conversion.
9. Dictionary Feature – don’t know the definition of a word, enter the word along side the word ‘define’ or ‘definition’ and Bing will display the definition from Encarta followed by other supporting queries.
10. Built-in Encarta – In both item 3 and 6, the first item that shows up in the search query comes from Encarta World English Dictionary. I personally love this because I used to always purchase the latest version of Encarta until recently.
11. Restrict search by File Type search – Bing allows you to refine your search by file type – be it .doc, .docx. pdf, mp3, etc.
12. Restrict search by Title – If you want to find your keyword in title only, use intitle:[keyword].
13. IP Lookup – Type an IP address and Bing will give you a list of domains associated with that IP.
14. Car Fax Results – purchasing a used car, type in the car’s VIN number into the search box and you can get the car’s history. I discovered this feature flukly on Bing three weeks ago when we were trying to decide with either new or used car.
15. Get Sports Information – Get scores, statistics, game time and much more quickly and easily. This is a great feature for those of us following playoffs.
16. Search History – look on to your left pane, Bing will display your most recent search/queries providing you quick and easy navigation to go back instead of re-typing it. Don’t like to see it, there is an option to Turn this feature off or Clear it (talk about giving their user control).
17. Related searches – again utilizing the left pane, Bing will assist by giving you related topics to your search criteria.
18. Preview video – hover over the video to start playing it. This should infact be in the top 5 things I love about Bing.
19. Restrict search by video length – If you are searching for a trailer or a full video, Bing provides you a way to filter your search by video length.
20. Specify image size – when you are looking for a image, you can specify the size (small, medium, large, or wallpaper) in the left pane.
21. Specify image layout – on the left pane, Bing gives you the option to find images by layout type : square, wide, or tall.
22. Specify image for color type - again on the left pane, Bing gives you the option to refine your search by specifying color or only black and white images. Watch out, because Google’s latest visual refresh shows a palette beside a similar option you provide and more.
23. Get Flight status - Enter your flight number with the keyword ‘flight status’ to find out the …status of your flight. This was a godsend feature during the whole Iceland volcano situation.
24. Bing Tones - mobile feature only but download free MP3 tones directly on to your mobile
25. Smart Shopper – locate and compare product prices to ensure you are getting the best deal!

New Item: 26. Top iPhone apps – Want to find out what is the most download-able iPhone app? Bing can give you that information and even better – categorize it for top free, paid, most expensive, social, etc download-able apps right here

Follow up – Things I wish Bing did.

1. Background Images – It would be great to know where the image was taken, who the artist is and a direct link to their public gallery so we can view and admire their work. Share the glory and show some love to the artist.
2. Built-in Calculator Function – It would be great if they offered the user more details on the extent of the built-in calculator feature and maybe UI of calculator that visually displays what functionality Bing supports (trigonometric, etc).
3. Find Current Time – This is a feature I use quite often when I make long distance calls, unfortunately Bing does not support this. Bing, please work on this.
4. Find statistical information - to get this information on Bing, it will give you a link that will display the information you are looking for. I may have been spoilt by Google but it would be nice to have this information not just be the first thing on the list but its displayed directly there instead of a link taking me away from the search index. e.g. Type ‘population of Canada’ in both Bing and Google and you will know what I mean.
5. Get Stock quotes - It would be great if Bing could support this again in the similar fashion as stated above. Right now, if I type ‘MSFT’, I am still shocked to see that Yahoo financial services is number 1 in their query. Do the same in Google and ofcourse you will find the current (real-time) price of Microsoft Stock and some general information (high/low/volume, etc).
6. Locate area codes and zip codes – In Google, enter an area/zip code into the search box and it will give you the nearby intersections and a small map showing you a few block radius of the area/zip code entered. Unfortunately Bing does not support this, it currently produces search results for that area code (if listed on a site).
7. Holiday Dates – Current search results for Holiday is quite poor. User will have have to enter holiday and year to find out when the date will occur within that year. It would be great if the result were displayed in a similar manner as items 4-6 mentioned above.
8. Bing’s Background images – it would be great if Bing had a gallery of their past background images

What do you like about Bing? What do you wish Bing had?