Microsoft Officially Announces Bing

In an official blog post on the Live Search blog (and tweet – see below) today Microsoft announced that they are in fact dropping Live and opening up Bing.  Microsoft says Bing will allow users to more easily find what it is they are truly looking for with new tools and an improved search engine.  They are calling Bing a “decision engine” – a search engine that helps you find things to make your final decision.

What about the name?  Where did that come from?  According to the blog post:

We needed a brand that was as fresh and new as our approach. It needed to be like the product — optimized for the Internet. A name that was memorable, short, easy to spell, and that would function well as a URL around the world. We like Bing because it sounds off in our heads when we think about that moment of discovery and decision making — when you resolve those important tasks.

If you are looking forward to trying out Bing today, you are unfortunately out of luck unless you’re a Microsoft employee. Bing will be slowly rolled out of the next couple of days, however, it is being announced and launched (internally) today.

On a side note, the logo looks rather bland and boring (I think).  I’ll be testing out Bing as soon it’s available to me so you can expect a full write up on that too.

Update: You can learn more about Bing here at DecisionEngine.com.