ery.djunaedy

Bing is not another smurf, and for sure its not your idea

Of course you know smurf, right? Those little smurf who use smurf as their main smurf to say any-smurf. If you do not know, smurf it away right here. Or smurf them at your local public library.

The reason I remember those cute cartoon is not because of their smurf, but simply how smurf the author was. The characters ask the reader to guess what they mean and by doing so they make the reader intimately interact with them.

Smurf becomes a legend because it asks the reader to constantly change the meaning of the word smurf according to the context. This is a very smart way to be legend.

There is another way to become a legend: be useful enough that everybody use you, and they will make up a (new) word for you. Google is one example. Nobody says “Yahoo the word for me, will you?” even if Yahoo was (already) a big search engine when Google started. As already set in history, Google has become a legend and the word “google” was accepted to be a verb.

The reason of this post is Microsoft’s attempt to legendarize their product Bing. Didn’t you hear their commercial: “bing and decide”?

Seriously: bing and decide? Are they playing smurf with us?

What Microsoft wanted to say with that byline is “go to bing website, type in your key words, and we will help you make decision”. They position their product as decision engine instead of a mere search engine. Its like they wanted to say that anybody can make a search engine, but not just anybody can help people to decide.

Nice positioning, of course, and this may (or may not) lead to a big customer base. Either way, I do not care.

What I am amazed is Microsoft’s approach to sell this product: inventing a word. Historically, new words are attached to a popular product. Think of “jeep” that has become a word to refer to the all-terrain car. What Microsoft is doing is trying to reverse the process: positioning a brand new product by introducing a new word.

Very novel, I have to admit, and very brave too. Personally, if feel that it will not take off. At least, the new word will not get used as popular as people use the word google.

The main reason is the product itself, its a new product. People will need to try the product. Even if the product is popular, it does not mean that people will start to use the word. Not to mention that Google will not do anything to counter-attack any attempt to reduce the market share: they can easily adopt the good features of Bing into their own search engine.

Furthermore, Microsoft is not known to have the wisdom of respecting its users opinion. Rather than listening, they usually choked the customers with ideas. If they can accept it, they will swallow, if they don’t they will throw it up.

This tendency is shown by this new-word-to-sell-product approach. Instead of waiting a popular wisdom to emerge into a new word, Microsoft simply reverse the process. I will not surprise if later Microsoft claims that this is not their own idea, but a Joe User from somewhere sent in his idea.

Of course you would remember the similar claim about many good features of Windows 7. No? Here is one example, if you missed it.

Having said all that, I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and wait a bit longer whether or not people will start to say “bing it will you?”. Sounds like a dirty word to me, but hey, its not my idea.