No big bang for Bing

The geniuses at Microsoft Corp. on Thursday announced their new "Bing" search engine, their latest effort to compete with Google Inc.’s famous tool. Trouble was, the search engine isn't available. I saw the news while working online and immediately typed "bing.com" into my browser. Nothing. Was there a typo? Nope. There was nothing.

Today I get a "coming soon" page, but no way to search. Some reports say Microsoft will be spending about $100 million to promote this new tool. You'd think someone would have thought to perhaps put up a Web site to coincide with the announcement. I guess not.

This is the software giant's third attempt at a search engine; previous efforts MSN Search and Live Search haven't come close to competing. Based on the botched out-of-the-gate stumble for Bing, I predict more of the same.

The Bing site, which Microsoft is touting as a "decision engine" is scheduled to go live next week. The company has high hopes for it; Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer told The New York Times that he liked the site’s potential to ”verb up,” meaning, I suppose, that he hoped that “to Bing” would become vernacular for “to Web search” as “to Google” has.

A 2 minute, 46 second video showing Bing promises faster, better search results designed to save users money. I got a bit of info watching the video, but I would really have liked to test the engine myself. Like the rest of the world, I'll wait, and in the meantime use Google and Yahoo to find what I need.

Maybe the folks at Microsoft should be searching "marketing tips" for their next product launch.