Bing UK - Round 2

I've been contacted for the second time by Jordi Ribas from Bing.com but this time for a one to one chat rather than just a Round Table.

First of all, even if I keep thinking why on earth they would like to know my opinion, I do appreciate the fact Microsoft teams are getting closer with developers as well (the problem is: do they know I am a web developer and not a web surfer?)

One Hour Chat

Nothing more and quite frenetic: I had a lot of questions while Jordi had to show me improvements since first disaster where they introduced bing UK showing us the USA version ...

Different Teams

Apparently Team System is not that powerful as we think. Microsoft teams are not sharing realtime code or improvements. There is a delay, that could be few days up to few months between USA and other versions and every team seems to be in charge of proper country search algorithm ...
In my opinion this is a massive waste of resources for whatever IT company. The team knowledge is partially sandboxed, but this is what we expect from whatever Microsoft product, but even strategies are different.
As example, bing USA shows useful info about whatever city plus touristic stuff and much more. Try to look for Chicago in bing USA and first info will be both useful and well organized: nice.
After 30 minutes of "look how much we take care about UK results" we tried London and not a single weather, map, or useful info has been showed. Even cooler, the first sponsored link is called: The Fastest Way To France ... I mean, Doode, if you search London of course it's because you wanna escape!

Visualize Mode - Aka Silverlight

Apparently Bing team put a lot of effort into visualize section ... what, you cannot use it?

Well, in my PC I have Flash, Silverlight, Java ...

So what? I do NOT
Jordi is a nice guy but he lost 300 points out of 10 when he replied something like:

JavaScript? ... ah, I am big fan, one team long time ago did this stuff and they used ECMAScript ...

Say what? In few words I had to show a truly silly example explaining that if I've been able to do that kind of FX via 1.23 KB of JavaScript, there is absolutely nothing, I repeat: nothing that is not possible to replicate in that visualize page via JavaScript rather than require a plug-in that is Microsoft specific.
He was surprised:

Did you really do this? ... oh yes, your name is there ... really it is only JavaScript?

(... I mean, guys, if you don't even know who you are inviting please don't ...)

Anyway, after this He talked about some standard stuff and I almost flipped out: so, Silverlight is considered a standard in Microsoft while JavaScript is considered "the old ECMAScript somebody tried ages ago" ... so, now my eyes are opened ... they don't even know they are using JavaScript in the whole site and partially even in the Silverlight section (images fade in/out FX) ... uhm ...

Why Silverlight

The only reasonable answers I've had about Silverlight are:

1. we could not obtain same performances
2. it's Microsoft stuff

In few words, Microsoft spent years and money to create a plugin able to bring what whatever TraceMonkey, V8, or WebKit based browser can devour with closed eyes. The day Microsoft will realize that the reason is loosing market share is an historical software cancer called Internet Explorer will be too late, surely after Google will beat everybody with free wireless access and free operating systems virus free and created to be online 100% of the time.

We Are Morons

I have tried to surf Bing via my Android ... slow, too slow, plus I need to move the page around to perform a search. What I have asked was:

Is there any chance you will put in the preferences panel a checkbox able to remove all that layout since the reason I use a search engine is to search stuff rather than check, as example, info about a Zebra mouth?

The answer was something like:

You see? When we have been in a school the Teacher was asking kids about those info showed over home page images!

There we are, the we are all morons Microsoft style is another reason developers do not always appreciate Microsoft decisions.
In few words Bing has been created for kids. OK, nice try, good purpose, I am sure we all wanna know more about the Zebra, but can it be possible that me, as 31 years old man that was only trying to search something had to wait 175 Kb before I can perform a search via suggestion and other more useful stuff? Can I decide to be interested about the Zebra mouth, only when I search for it? Maybe I am asking too much consideration ... so why does not Microsoft provide a teacher for all of us, interviewing about whatever bing shows in the home page?

Mobile Device Version

Since an average of 175 Kb plus a layout created for massive images, "let me suspect" that Bing did not think at all about all current and new Smart Phones (too futuristic, isn't it?), I have asked if there was any plan for a mobile version since that layout was clearly too much for my Android.
He showed me a weird phone I have no idea about, plus an address: m.bing.com
Well, the m.bing.co.uk is just bing but remember the "we don't share code and knowledge" strategy? USA did a step forward providing this smart, fast, simple, and efficient interface and only in 4 Kb ... I already love this version!!! I would like to spend more time about this super fast and efficient Bing but I have been called for something else ... the "for kid and broadband only" version ... how cute!

Partially Color Blind

Both first time and this time I had to underline it's difficult and confusing for me to have all these bloody random images under main features on the top left of the page.
This is the main reason I have asked if it was possible to remove from preferences panel these pointless images since I am not interested but all I received as answer was something like:

We have a blind developer that is complaining more about tags positions

So, since I am extremely lucky compared with this person, I can be ignored ... my problem does not exist, right?
FAIL, let me remove those bloody thingy under what I am trying to read!
Microsoft has always been closed to assisted technologies so why this Bing cannot be "simply simpler" and closer to me as well?

Conclusion

For the good part I let you discover what UK team has done so far. Definitively Bing UK improved from the first beta that was a graphic wrapper around Live, but it's still not that clever as is the USA version and adopted strategies/choices are arguable.
Silverlight: get out my view! Google success is speed and simplicity and Bing best feature requires a third part plugin that could not be there? FAIL
Images: nice, cool, good hint for people that have nothing to do and lot of time to play looking for squares over those images ... but maybe somebody else is trying to work with his/her PC and all this stuff becomes just annoying. I mean, even random images ...
Mobile: if there is a mobile version I expect a massive GO MOBILE button ... where is it, exactly? Not there plus no automatic redirect, and best of all, m.bing.usa is a completely unknown alternative. Microsoft, what are you exactly doing there? We are basically in 2010, did you realize this?

UK Bing Roundtable - Just My Opinion

It is probably too late and I did not check other guys blogs, but I would like to bring here my impressions about this Bing event I have been invited few days ago.

How Did It Start

Hi Andrea,
I'm writing on behalf of Microsoft to invite you to a discussion about Bing, the new search engine that recently launched in beta in the UK.

...

Colin Mercer, a member of Microsoft Life Without Walls initiative group, is a truly nice guy. Spontaneous, friendly, exactly that kind of guy that could let a group of foreigners feel comfortable since first meet up minutes. Being glad to have been invited without asking, and without being a Microsoft fun as well, of course I was there: to understand what this initiative was about and why they called me, raising my doubts from this high geek technical blog.

Bing Round Table, The Good Part

To be honest, I am not going to be that nice about this event, but I have to admit that seeing Microsoft trying to be closer than before with people that make Web live, any topic blogger in this case, was a nice surprise. The organization, the choose place, and the catering was excellent, even if there were only about 10 guests and there was no time to eat and drink. It is a good start point from a company famous to be closed for its selling purpose only. Good Stuff, please keep doing it, it can only brings benefits from different points of view.

Special Moronic Guests, That Is What We Are

The presentation started with a lovely woman and a sort of jingle: "Bing"! OK, that was to make us comfortable, that was to have a quick laugh, that was to break the ice, that was ... only the begin!
The entire presentation showed us stats, those stats were retrieved from God Knows which tool bar present only in Internet Explorer, and those stats, even if from IE world, put Microsoft search engines in third position, I can't imagine what could come from Mozilla or Google, if they present stats based on their own products ... I guess Bing would not even exists ...
Since those stats were not that pro-bing, they stopped into a slide with classical promises a la "it's simple, it's friendly, it's new, it's brand, it's something you should use, it makes your life better" ... no comment.
Fortunately, some guy started instantly to ask what was new, what was interesting, what was the missing piece that other well known search engines do not have ... and every question had behind a though like: why are we here and what are you showing us? We are not dummies and we know what we want, what other offer, and what we are looking for.
Were we interested about TV ad like presentation? NO
Were we interested about promises other search engines maintain since ages? NO
Were we interested about U.S.A. verion, being in London, where Bing is still beta and smells like Live from miles without bringing a single new feature and positioning bing itself in the second place when you search for bing in the uk version? NO
So what were they showing us? Did they think we do not know what is a search engine? Probably

Missed Expectations

At least that what I think,everybody was looking for that genius thing that nobody else have ... it did not happen! Apparently, the most innovative thing is the live video preview for video results ... OK, I want to be honest, I think everybody over 18 has seen some xxx search engine and everybody knows that a quick preview in a video link is not a Bing idea ... isn't it?
The second most important innovation is a vertical focused lateral bar, something that simply remove spaces fr mobile devices, something useful because with that kind of layout and images behind white links people could even not notice top links so here they are with an innovative lateral menu ... is this wow?

Bing UK, I Want Developers Name!

First of all, for a company that sell enterprise software a la Visual Studio Team System, I wonder how it can be possible that whatever country version is different from every other ... merge projects and use one big development team? Naaaaaaaaa, they prefer to delegate search engine development in each country ... what a waist of money! The UK version is a new graphical version of the Live.co.uk search engine, same weird results (Bing itself in second position after a link called News about Bing ...), not a single lateral bar, nothing useful in the home page ... and about this, 110Kb of home page because of course if a user needs to search something he has to wait the castle, the building, the big sized image in home page. Moreover, with 13 inline JavaScript files, when you chose a different search type switching from Web to Image, the entre page is reloaded and the only difference is the form action, using /images/ rather than the main path ... I mean: Are You Serious?
Design wise, as I said in some other post I am partially color blind. I perfectly recognize red and green, but slight gradients make my life truly difficult.
Google, in its simplicity, studied a lot color contrasts to make everything clear, now try to read the disclaimer, or links bottom right ... oh really? You did not even know there were links there? I am not a designer, but you do not need a PHD to understand that bright text over a bit brighter background does not make sense ... now put white text over images loads of details ... and now tell me how long you spent to read that text, and how much all these problems do not exists in both Yahoo and Google. Is it all about design? Does it make sense to create a 100Kb home page just to add noise and confusion? Did they truly need 13 inline JavaScript for a page that has no functionality rather than a field? Where is the simplicity they are talking about?
Google, 25Kb, you write, you press enter, that's it, that's why they are the number one search engine ... no confusion, not a single waist of time or bandwidth, optimized for mobile devices and even if Microsoft has more than one HTC device, they do not care ... try to surf Bing with iPhone or Android ... are we still in 2000 or in the netbook/small screen devices era? A splash in the past, and still nothing new!

Bing U.S.A. You Click Rather Than Scroll!

Again, I did not get this "feature", the vertical oriented menu on the left suppose to make everything simple because in Gogle you have to scroll ... What?
The scrolling operation with a mouse is extremely natural and it can be performed everywhere in the page while it is still natural with mobile devices where with a finger or a dedicated button you just ... scroll! The search, point, and click is a boring, slow, tedious, operation, even more difficult with mobile devices and whatever "finger-pad" panel we all have in our mobile devices. In few words, in UK Bing presentation they showed us how simple is to find Washington map ... you search for Washington, the engine is so clever to understand that you are looking for a city ( again, moronic stuff, we all know that this is the abc for a top ten search engine ) and if you click Map in the left side menu, you will find the map. In Google, you have to scroll ( weird, I always found maps in the top of the page ) to find information, so they organized everything, with a response page which average is again about 70Kb VS 30 to 35 for Google, where in the latter one you can find everything you need in one page, quick, simple, that is simple!
I do not want to comment the fact they proposed U.S.A. related searches, and non UK images in the home page for the UK Bing version ...

There Will Be Time For Technical Question?

After any sort of question and hundreds of good points about missed interesting news for this new Microsoft search engine, I simply called time to ask technical question. THey said yes but thre was no time, and you know what? I got time blowing out loudly and quickly my points producing non-sense sentences cause I lost number of things to ask or say ... but one thing I will never forget: I asked about 13 inline scripts and the reason if in the UK version I click images I have to reload the page just to change a form target ... the answer was: I do not know what you are talking about ... OK, probably misunderstanding, probably not DB related, but at the end of the day, the only though in my mind was this one: Why on earth they called me? Did they think I was a web troll? Did they think I was a teenager with a lot of time to waist behind the PC? Did they ever consider me as a 10 years experienced web developer with deep JavaScript knowledge, server side certifications, and studies that not a single young Phd person have unless he/she has not my same passion?
Disappointed, partially humiliated, and still load of doubts about how the presentation supposed to be and the reason they called us.

Is Everything That Bad?

One thing I truly appreciated, which does not come from this meeting, is the Bing API, in my opinion well done and flexible enough to let us create interesting applications or web gadgets. If you'll stay tuned, I am planning to create a bookmarkable script that will make searches nice, simple, and friendly, exactly how Bing should, in Microsoft mind, be.

Finally, this post is only my impression, my opinions, and nothing else. I may have misunderstood a lot of words/questions, specially after a couple of fresh beers, but I still wonder why I was there ... and if I would like to be there again. Let's see how things will be.

Post Scriptum

All my opinions come from 30 minutes analysis in place, during the meeting, I've never had time these days to investigate the search engine itself so I may have missed something ... again, take carefully what I said about Bing, thanks.

Bing Round Table - Tomorrow

Tomorrow I am going to #meetbing to talk about Bing ( :P ) and its present/future.
The event has been better described by Phil Leggetter and as He did, I would like to know if there is any tech question you would like me to bring there.

So far, I kinda like what Bing API offers, and I am planning to use it soon, but my only concern is about requests limits over a single IP.
Thinking about firewalled/natted/DHCPped infrastructure, 7 different people could not use a generic Bing gadget in the same moment ... anything else?