• Silicon Alley Insider, Tuesday, July 14, 2009 12:45 PM

Bing, Microsoft's revamped and renamed search engine, is now a month old, and the software giant is touting its early success (link: http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/07/13/bing-at-month-one.aspx). Indeed, not only is Bing receiving favorable early reviews, but more importantly, recent comScore data shows a healthy pop in traffic to the Microsoft search site. Some critics are even suggesting that Bing could usher in a whole new era in the search wars between Google and Microsoft.

Well, "keep dreaming," says Silicon Alley Insider writer Henry Blodget. He argues that Bing traffic has only increased because Microsoft spent $80 to $100 million on a marketing campaign. Surely, many folks will try the search engine once, he says, but in the end, the vast majority of people will go back to Google simply because it's what they're used to, and it isn't broken.

"When they see that (Bing is) not obviously better, and/or when Google immediately copies anything that is actually better about it, most people will head right back to Google again. And they'll be well-served there," Blodget says. He cites a recent survey by Imran Khan of JP Morgan that finds that 98% of people won't switch to Bing, and those that do will likely be coming from AOL and Ask.

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