If you pay any attention at all, you have by now been overrun with all the hype surrounding Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing.  If you don’t believe me, go to Twitter and check the trending topics.  Even more interesting, check out all the posts referencing #badabing.  I don’t know if these are all industry insiders using this, but there sure do appear to be a lot of them posting their comments/findings about the new engine.  

Microsoft is calling Bing a “decision engine”.  That’s all well and good, but really Bing doesn’t seem like anything that new or groundbreaking.  Don’t get me wrong, the search seems good.  Better than live.com.  The association of topic-relevant information within the search results pages is new and well executed.  If nothing else, Bing deserves some action for that.  Some of the expanded data (although there isn’t a whole lot of it yet) is interesting.  

But, what makes it a decision engine and not a search engine?  Users are still searching based on keywords.  Users are still looking at the results pages to decide what to do next.  Sure, the user experience has been slightly changed and even improved.  But, this is not a major change.

If you want to see some real rethinking of the basic search premise, I suggest you instead check out Google Squared.  The latest from the Google Labs is a pretty cutting edge and interesting retooling of the entire search experience, essentially combining a series of searches to refine the information presented based on the relationship of those elements.  It also provides some pretty useful data all together on a single page, much like what Bing takes pride in achieving, but in Google Squared’s case it is a column-based layout where each column is customizeable providing the opportunity for really unique results.

I am happy for Microsoft and thrilled to see a decent search product out of them.  I think the launch of a new brand will be successful in getting user adoption and helping people forget live.com, msn.com, and the other marginal efforts of the past.  But, make no mistake in who the real innovators are.  Clearly, Google still holds that honor.

Google Insights (http://www.google.com/insights) is reporting that post-inauguration, Barack Obama has surpassed some pretty big names, at least in terms of search volume.

Is this a good time to do some arbitrage for my Amazon affiliate program?  My Google results are only showing two PPC ads, both positive messages and neither peddling either of his books.

Nope, this is a time for renewal (and reconciliation, according to the White House today).  Today is not a day to eek out tiny profits as an invisible middleman.  Today is a day to revel in hopefulness, pride and pray that Mr. Obama can do something to fix this wretched economy before it is too late.