Bing Hooks Up With Wolfram Alpha, Should Google Be Jealous?

When I first saw Bing, I was less than impressed. At the time before the Yahoo agreements, I had done a few searches, trying to find for myself which of the three (I almost said big three, but the only reason Bing could be considered big is because of the dollars Microsoft has poured into it) would yield the best results, for my purposes.

I found that Yahoo, and remember, this was pre-Bing with Yahoo ads Yahoo, was the best choice for the searches I was doing. Bing was not close, and I was surprised that Google was not close to Yahoo.

Now, Bing is powering Yahoo, so I really see no reason to visit Bing proper, as the results are the same (at least they are supposed to be!).

Today, a piece on Betanews tells that Bing has taken a step into better, and more advanced, searches with the integration of Wolfram Alpha.

Since Microsoft’s Bing search engine debuted, it’s made a strong charge against Google, the search market’s dominant player. It has had diverse and attention-grabbing advertising campaigns, its partnership with Yahoo is one of the biggest search collaborations of the last decade, and it regularly rolls out timely and compelling new features like the recent integration of Twitter and Facebook feeds.

I must say that I don’t agree at all, I don’t think that Bing has done anything that any other search engine could not do with the name recognition, and dollars, of Microsoft.

Because of this, Bing has been steadily gaining traffic and revenue, according to recent figures by Hitwise and IDC.

And don’t forget the money. Any time you throw money at users, they will use something. Some will use something deplorable in order to get some additional money.

Today, Bing is beginning to show a geekier and more productive side through a partnership with computational search engine Wolfram Alpha. Now, in addition to doing Web searches, Bing can process raw numerical data in areas such as nutrition, health and advanced mathematics.

“By using our API, Bing will be able to seamlessly access the tens of thousands of algorithms and trillions of pieces of data from Wolfram|Alpha, and directly incorporate the computations in its search results,” Wolfram Alpha’s Schoeller Porter wrote today.

This is the kind of thing that can make people (like me) sit up and take notice. It also could be a way to gain marketshare on Google without bribing users with money or free wi-fi usage. It will also last over time, avoiding the necessity to prop up Bing with extra ads to drive traffic – if you do the best job at something, people will use your product.

For an increasing number of topics, Bing can create more sticky search results pages. One of the examples the Bing team used in its blog today was the query “dodecahedron,” a twelve-sided polygon (and character in Norton Juster’s kid’s story The Phantom Tollbooth). On the Bing results page, it now shows an image of the polygon, its combinatorial properties, its geometric properties, and more. On Google, it also provides images, but everything else is presented as a link, immediately shuffling the searcher off to another site. The more useful data Bing can deliver, the longer it will be able to keep the user aboard.

These features began rolling out today, but will not be complete for a few days, so availability of Wolfram Alpha results will vary. In Betanews tests today, the calculation capability was not yet online.

It’s certainly something to think about.  Wolfram Alpha is not something that I think of using all the time, but if I see that Bing with it is giving me the best results, I will naturally move to Bing on a regular basis.

I’m sure that is what Microsoft is thinking too.

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