Bing is the new search engine by Microsoft which was due to launch on the 3rd of June, but for some reason it has launched today!
After using the service for the last ten minutes or so there seems to be do real major difference between Live.com and Bing.com. Search results are still terrible and it is really only the interface that has improved and only slightly.
I cant see Bing in its current form taking any search share from Google. In fact I think in its current form it is probably going to do the opposite and give Google more share of the market. Im amazed that Microsoft cant get a good search algorhythm and that Google are just so far ahead in actually providing quality results.
Microsoft really seems to just lack originality when it comes to search and the majority of their online products. MSN has never really done too much, Windows media player is completely outdated and hotmail needs a revamp but never seems to change much, now bing is the search engine that couldnt.
It would be great to hear your thoughts on the new Bing search engine. The best example of the results is that I searched ‘Crenk’ and the our own website came up 9th! Terrible!
For the last two years we have been developing RouteNote at Insomnia Media, and in that time have been closely keeping an eye on digital music news and where the shift is going. I thought I would write a quick post and let everyone know my favourite digital music blogs to follow.
Hypebot – Hypebot is written by Bruce Houghton and is a daily report on the last news in the digital music space. Bruce is also the founder and president of Skyline Music (booking agency) and Skyline Consultancy in which he is a music and technology consultant to many music startups.
Digital Music News – Digital Music News is the news and information authority for music industry and technology executives. Digital Music News is founded and edited by Paul Resnikoff. Paul writes daily posts on Digital Music News and also send out a dialy newsletter to industry executives called the Daily Snapshot.
Billboard.biz – Billboard.biz is the digital music arm of the Billboard website. Billboard.biz discusses digital music news with normally at least 10 articles per day. Articles on Billboard.biz don’t just come straight from the USA they as encompass International digital music news, so that you get the full picture.
Digital Audio Insider – Digital Audio Insider is written by David Harrell, who writes digital music news from an artists perspective. David is in a band based in the UK and they use all kinds of different digital music stores and partners to sell/stream their music, and David’s writings are a great insight into what the average artist is thinking and what they are looking for.
Coolfer – Glenn Peoples has worked in the music industry for over eight years and founded Coolfer.com while working and living in New York City. Coolfer was a total ad free blog which is pretty unheard of these days. A week or so ago Glenn announced on his site that he would stop writing because he was offered a new job over at Billboard.biz asSenior Editorial Analyst, so you can now read his work over there.
Have you ever struggled to find the torrents you are looking for? This means that you have to travel to 10 different sites until you find something that vaguely looks like the right torrent! TorrentZen aims to come to your rescue. TorrentZen is a live bittorrent search engine that brings the results of some of your favourite bittorrent search engines.
TorrentZen works in the same way as other torrent tracks but instead of actually hosting pages with the results, they provide a link to those pages on other search engines. Therefore TorrentZen functions in the same basic way as a meta search engine.
Previously here on Crenk we have talked about the top torrent trackers on the web and this time I want to outline the top 5 multi-search torrent tools.
NowTorrents. Searches up to twelve sites at once. I like the file type tabs and health indicator, and they offer a Firefox and IE compatible search plugin.
uSniff. I wrote about uSniff before, and I use it quite often. I don’t really search a lot of different sites, usually just Pirate Bay and IsoHunt, and they’re both supported (along with six others). The interface is clean and responds quickly – the search box throws some people off, though. I don’t understand why, it’s giant, orange, and says “search” on it. They also have a search plugin for IE and Firefox.
ScrapeTorrent. Offers a nice preference page and searches nine sites at once. Piratebay, IsoHunt, Mininova, and Demonoid are included, and they’re my go-to sites anyways. I approve!
Speckly. I hate the way it displays results: gobs and gobs of text, Google style, and all on one page. There aren’t any sorting options, though you can at least view by file type.
Torrentz. Technically it searches multiple sites, but you’ll get a general results page first. Clicking one of the results will take you to a listing of all the individual torrents. I find it an annoying process, and don’t use Torrentz as a result.
Not too long ago the guys over at Killerstartups launched a new service called Dataopedia. Dataopedia is a basic solution that allows users to type in any url and find quickly key metrics from various sources.
Metrics that are measured include Google PR, Alexa Numbers, Compete and Quantcast analysis, Social media breakdowns, Twitter news, Technorati links, Friendfeed and url registration information. Currently, Dataopedia pulls in all this information from various partners including Crunchbase, Compete, Digg, Getsatisfaction and more.
There’s also something interesting buried at the bottom of the site profiles: an ability to comment on the site using Disqus. While that’s not likely to have the reach of a Google Search Wiki, it provides yet another way to gather details about the site and its reputation.
Dataopedia does a great job of pulling all the key quantitative and qualitative site measures required in todays world of web 2.0. There is still a lot of improvements that can be made with the user interface, but over it is probably already leading in this specific market, even thought market is very small.
Youtube seems to have added a very interesting feature to their off site video players. I’m really not too sure if anyone has already reported about this, but Youtube video players which are hosted off the Youtube site now have their own drop down search tool. I have added the video below so you can have a look:
This is a great idea! Now any Youtube off site video player is pretty much as useful as being on the Youtube site itself. Any video can be played in the one player. I admit because the player can be quite small at times, the search results don’t show too many results at once, so you have to be pretty specific to find the exact video you want. However this is a great addition from Youtube!
Additionally, when searching for an image to use I came across this,
When using Google image search instead of searching then finding an image then if that isn’t the right image, then you have to go back and keep doing the same process. Thus getting a little annoying. However, now you can search straight in Google image search while still looking at a page. I know, not big news but just thought someone actually might be interested in this.
For a long time now there has been a search engine that has been totally forgotten about, that search engine is Dogpile. Dogpile is a meta-search engine that is currently owned by Infospace. I was browsing the site this afternoon and suddenly noticed that there werent any search ads in the results. Im so used to seeing search ads on Yahoo, Google, etc, but nothing on Dogpile. Why is this? Why would they have a search engine that is obviously not getting huge amounts of traffic, but is still getting something, so why not at the very least create a partnership with Google and get some money for those search ads?
This is probably not a good example, but im really sick of seeing Silicon Valley companies who get funding or whatever, but havent actually developed a real business model. Prime example lately was Sonific. Sonific was a great idea, but they never really had an affective business model that could go with their high class product. That is the main reason why I like seeing startups like Techmeme do so well, because they are bootstrapped with no money at all, but they have a real aim and a business model that can pull it all together.
Update: There was a misprint which stated that Dogpile was owned by IAC, which its not. Dogpile is owned by Infospace.
Not too long ago the guys over at 
