There is a lot of talk about Microsoft's "Bing" search engine and how it's emerging as a popular alternative to Google, especially in the US market. According to Comscore, the "Bing" search engine has seen increases of 1% of overall searches performed on the internet from month to month from May - July 2009 and continues to climb in popularity.
Yet with Google still owning 64% of the US search market and even more of that on a global scale (78%), should they be worried? Is the phrase 'I will Google it' going to phase out and be replaced by 'I will Bing it'?....
I'm not sure that such a thing is likely to happen. I've had discussions on this topic with people over and over again and it's all about distribution and the popularity of that distribution. Google has a very solid network of websites using it's search engine in a lucrative partnership program that they have been able to leverage better than anyone else and Google apps are the most popular ones used on Apple's iPhones and RIM's Blackberry's and other smart phones alike.
My take is that it would be really difficult for Bing to become the main player in search and increase it's share five fold in an effort to displace Google as number one. It's not impossible, because truly nothing is impossible, yet for the purpose of this discussion, let's just say that it's highly unlikely that such a thing will happen.
Microsoft is not only behind Google in it's online distribution network and the creation of mobile apps; they are also still the number three player and not even number two yet with Yahoo! having just over 19% of the market. I like Microsoft's effort here and I am even somewhat impressed with what I have seen when using Bing, but I simply don't see Google slipping to number 2 or 3 anytime soon. Bing wants to be number one, yet they should focus on being number two as that will be a difficult thing to achieve in itself.
Would be interested to hear your thoughts. What do you think?
Ron Kunitzky, an expert in strategic business affiliations and partnerships and founder of Geyser Marketing Group – the Partnership Marketing Firm, and has successfully brokered partnership marketing programs for companies as varied as Coastal Contacts, Dell Computer, NASDAQ, and 1-800-GOT-JUNK?.