Monthly Main Meeting Highlights

Welcome to May 2011 Main Meeting

 

Tonight the Head of Search, Ming Foong from NineMSN and Vincent Petit their Consumer Search Manager

came along to demonstrate Bing, Microsoft’s answer to Google.

Ming kicked off the night with a discussion on what makes Bing different.

Bing aims at enhancing your search experience with more intuitive information being shown on the search page.

Vincent then took the reins to give us a look at how Bing achieves that objective.

The Bing home page is an uncluttered photo with a single search bar.

Vincent then showed us some very common searches and how Bing has enhanced the search experience.
He started with the RTA site.

The first difference from other search engines is the highlight around the result Bing thinks is the nearest match to your search.
Bing has been value-adding to the more common search results with subtle additions like the quick access area, which pulls out the items most sought, such as the RTA phone number.

In the case of eBay, the quick access is achieved by placing the eBay search bar in the Bing search results.

Sport gets value added in the form of results and stats like these from the Swans AFL site.

Personalities receive a similar treatment. Here we find out Andrew Symonds basic stats.

Going to Melbourne? Bing collects the most frequent viewed data on the front page of your search.

Another interesting enhancement was Bing’s view of the weather.

There are many sources of weather information so Bing simply collects it all on one page. The source of the information is shown in each highlighted hit and the provider’s page is only a click away.

At the bottom of the screen is a list of sites Bing used to compile the information.

Bing appears to come into its stride when a comprehensive search for specific information is undertaken.

Vincent demonstrated by undertaking a search for dog breeds.

Using the related search tags on the left of screen the search can be refined.

Vincent looked at all dog breeds

Then he refined the search to small breeds

The enhancements can even be found on the front page where hot spots on the page give points on the story behind the chosen photo.

In the Q & A session Vincent discussed the the Microsoft Translator

and the Bing tool bar.

The translator is the right hand end icon, and in response to a question from the audience, Vincent showed how the translator can be used to translate large amounts of text.

Here is a link direct to the Bing translator

http://www.microsofttranslator.com/

and you can download the tool bar here;

http://toolbar.discoverbing.com/toolbar/en-AU.html

The Raffle

Ming and Vincent brought three bags of goods for our raffle,

with items such as a DVD of Ramsey Kitchen Nightmares, tee shirts, a hot cup, and water cooler.

The winners

Bob Campbell

Mark Windridge

And the door prize when to

Bob Backstrom