Some more regarding Bing:

A quote from the Good Experience newsletter that just arrived:

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A hundred million mistakes: Microsoft's Bing search engine
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Microsoft has a problem. It's sitting on a cash hoard of what, 20 or
30 billion dollars, waiting to be invested somewhere - and meanwhile
Google's influence keeps getting bigger, bigger, bigger. Not to
mention all those Apple commercials still making fun of Windows.

Everything Microsoft has tried recently hasn't worked. They tried
the "I'm a PC" ads, a knockoff of the Mac ads - didn't work. Tried
the Zune, a knockoff of the iPod - didn't work. Tried redoing MSN
Search again and again, as a knockoff of Google - didn't work.
What's the world coming to, when Microsoft can't build a monopoly
around a knockoff?

It's those effing customers. They keep choosing the best experience.

I have to imagine this is tough on Ballmer and whoever else over
there. No matter what they try, the customers refuse to take orders
from Redmond. Sure, lots of people still pay the upgrade tax on
Windows and Office every two years, but only because they have to.
There's no love.

So what does Microsoft do? They launch - I'm still reeling from this
- they launch a *search engine*. To compete head-on with Google. In
search. I just need to type that again: Microsoft wants to unseat
Google with a search engine.

Now here's where it gets really nuts.

Microsoft's strategy, to win market share from Google, is not to
compete on user experience. No. Microsoft's strategy is to
*advertise the heck out of the thing* and hope people flock to the
site.

They are spending - wait, let me try my best "Dr. Evil" voice - *one
hundred million dollars* to order the world to use their search
engine. According to a Microsoft exec in charge of the launch, "The
key will be whether we deliver a product and connect with people
emotionally in the advertising." (See quote in the NYT piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/business/media/05adco.html )

A hundred million dollars to "connect with people emotionally in the
advertising." If I've learned one thing in my customer experience
work - http://creativegood.com/consulting/compare.html - over 12
years, it's this: any online strategy built on emotional connection,
based on flashy ads or a new font or color scheme on the website, is
guaranteed to fail. Customers online don't respond to a brand
marketed to them, they respond to the EXPERIENCE they have. If they
can accomplish their goal quickly and easily, they return to the
site, and tell their friends. It's that simple. And if one site
already provides a good experience, then there's no need to consider
switching to some other site, no matter what the company brags about
itself in its ads.

I wish Microsoft would *succeed* - I'd love to see them excel at
something new, really establish themselves as a leader in some new
venture - but this isn't it. So I have some suggestions.

Here's what Microsoft could buy with a hundred million dollars:

- ownership stakes in one hundred startup companies working on new
ideas, in areas *not* dominated by Google. (See Internet Week NY -
http://www.internetweekny.com/ - or Tech Meetups in NYC -
http://www.meetup.com/ny-tech/ - or Silicon Valley -
http://www.meetup.com/svnewtech/ - for several dozen ideas right
now.)

- two thousand years of innovation and entrepreneurship by paying
$50,000 annually to a thousand entrepreneurs to work for two years
and share IP rights with their results (the MIT Media Lab model,
roughly).

- a solar power grid to cut Microsoft's carbon footprint by 30%,
show that the company is serious about going green, and save on
operating costs (the approach of Google -
http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels/home - copying them here
would be a *good* thing!)

- or a bunch of TV ads and promos for a knockoff search engine.

Microsoft is making an enormous bet on the how the world used to
work, and I can't help but think they're on the wrong side of
history. They're apparently hoping that a top-down, big-media,
command-and-control approach will ram this brand down enough
consumers' throats that people will just feel obligated to switch
from fast, easy, well-known Google to a new brand they saw chatted
up like a new blockbuster movie.

That's just not how the Internet works, and Microsoft should know
better.

This all reminds me of the humbling experience of another big
company, about twenty years back, when an innovative leader
disrupted its model. When IBM was fading, it was Microsoft that took
the lead. I just wish Microsoft would learn from its past and be a
leader again.

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