Bing's lunge for Google

"Everybody's buzzed about Bing," said Chris Thompson in The Big Money. And the early numbers from ComScore suggest that Bing, the new Web search tool from Microsoft, boosted the software giant's share of the search market from 8 percent to 12 percent in its first week. Google's share inched up, too, so apparently people were just taking Bing for a spin instead of abandoning their favorite search engine—but that doesn't mean the folks at Google aren't a little worried.

Google's more than a little concerned about Bing, said James Doran in the New York Post. "Co-founder Sergey Brin is so rattled by the launch of Microsoft's rival search engine that he has assembled a team of top engineers to work on urgent upgrades to his Web service." Bing has been "warmly welcomed" by analysts and users alike, and Google needs to figure out quickly whether Bing's "crucial search algorithm" gives it an edge.

It's true that Bing's debut wasn't "too shabby," said Clint Boulton in eWeek, but Google isn't "hitting any panic button yet." Still, Bing's arrival certainly justified taking steps—such as providing a link on Google's main page to overlooked services—to remind users of Google's strongest features. Let's face it, "Google's lone sustaining revenue stream is its search advertising," so it would be crazy to "ignore an assault on its castle walls."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up