Funny story on TechCrunch today. Seems like Bing’s popularity is on the decline now, just a few days after its launch and short lived run at #2 search engine. Looking at the StatCounter chart, it’s interesting to see how Bing’s big influx of users seemed to have come from (and now apparently returned to) Google.
I say its funny because that’s pretty much what I did… When Bing launched I changed my default search engine from Google because, at first glance, Bing seemed kind of cool. A lot of searches were producing good quality results, sometimes besting Google in what I considrered most relevant. And hey look, it even ranked my Zune on Windows 2003 post #1, versus #4 on Google – so it must be a great search engine, right?! Well it is pretty good…
But here’s the thing… When you’re not using Google, you start to feel like you’re missing out on the “full” internet. It’s almost, in fact, like Google is the internet. It’s nothing new really, I mean the name is synonymous with the web; but truly the scope of what Google knows does seem (even if it is mostly psychological) to be the “definitive guide” to what’s out there. On every search I’d do Bing first and then use Google just to make sure I wasn’t missing out on anything. And since in most cases the Bing results would appear somewhere in the list of Google results, I just usually ended up going from there. So in the end searching Google first and bypassing Bing altogether would be the most efficient workflow.
The difference became especially apparent during the course of my work day where I’d be looking for a lot of more obscure IT/programming topics. The more unpopular the topic, the more Google proved it’s worth. For example I’m doing some PDF work with Ghostscript and encoutering some errors. If I search Google for “ghostscript error codes” I get the official ghostscript documentation page as the first result. That doesn’t even appear on the first page of Bing results – which contain a lot of irrelevant forum topics.
In the end, Bing is still a good tool and no doubt it’ll occupy the second slot on my search list. But if this little experience proves anything, it’s that any new search engine is going to have serious challenges matching Google’s usefulness and grabbing their market share in the long term. It will be interesting to see what happens when the “real” semantic web takes hold, but I have little doubt that Google’s already well ahead of the competition there, too.
The Last Ride
I honestly can’t remember the last “great” film I’ve watched. Sure there have been a couple standouts this year – Zombieland was entertaining (if a bit shallow), The Hangover was mildly funny (if that sort of thing is your bag), etc. District 9 was, and I seem to be in the minority here, by far the most overrated film of the year. I understand the novel visuals and plot, but honestly it made little sense and the characters were forgettable. Just read any of the thoughtful reviews out there to get the gist of what I’m saying.
Anyway the point here is not to deride the garbage that Hollywood so reliably produces, but to remind you that there are some great movies out there that you may not have heard of. Case in point is “The Last Ride” an Australian made film by director Glendyn Ivin. My wife and I watched this at the Whistler Film Festival this weekend, and we both came away impressed.
More than any movie I remember, The Last Ride has that elusive quality that draws you in and makes you forget you’re watching a movie. The cinematography is maybe the best I’ve ever seen – it’s a gorgeous film. The characters are real, complex and brilliantly developed. This movie makes you feel a wide range of emotions, and even though you might think you know where it’s headed, the tension is masterfully crafted.
We did overhear some comments after the show that it was too dark, too depressing. And to be fair, it is definitely not a “happy ending” kind of movie. That fact will probably relegate it to the film festival section of local video stores – and I’d doubt it will see a wide release. Which is a shame really, because it’s the first really “great” movie I’ve seen in a long time and the first movie that made me feel something more than just regret at wasting the last hour and a half of my life. You should see this movie if you get a chance.
Visit the site: http://www.lastridemovie.com/
Posted in Commentary