Over the coming days, weeks and months plenty will be written about what happened today.  Yahoo has officially entered an agreement to turn over their search engine (and all of the monetization of search results) to be handled by Microsoft using their relatively new Bing technology.

I watched Carol Bartz’s offiicial address this morning.  Although her demeanor was certainly polished and confident, I did sense a bit of resignation.  Afterall, Yahoo stood firm against Microsoft believing that the company was undervalued.  Now, it would seem, Yahoo has been distilled into what I have been saying it has always been— the most powerful destination site on the web.

But, there’s a second part to what I have been saying all along— and that is that no matter how good of a destination site Yahoo is, the revenue that comes with being a content site and not an advertiser platform is significantly smaller.  Thus, I expect it won’t be long before we see a leaner Yahoo altogether.  I feel for the staff who works to support search products, and the stress this must be causing you.

On a lighter note, in typical Yahoo versus Microsoft style, the homepages of each do seem reflective of the different takes on what is transpiring:

This morning, Bing features a bridge spanning two majestic and beautiful mountains (in Geneva, nonetheless).  I have no thoughts on what the dam might represent, except possibly Google:

While Yahoo has a lighter presentation on their homepage.  The image and story I was greeted with (sure it varies depending on the layout of your new Yahoo homepage) is about ‘armswinging’.  Saying that scientists have finally solved the mystery of why people swing their arms when they walk.  Well, Yahoo, that speaks volumes of the situation, in my opinion.  Microsoft is connecting mountains, and Yahoo is swinging arms.  I guess that would support what I thought I read as resignation in Carol Bartz’s presentation.

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.