Please rebrand Bing to Cortana!
Hey Microsoft! The name Bing does no good. It may feel like a well recognised brand, but it’s not; and I will name a couple of reasons in short. So, to make it short: please rename Bing to Cortana.
Why do I “care”?
A couple of weeks ago my mother reached out to me telling me, that she got a new computer to better work remote. Over the past years she used a MacBook Pro 13" from 2013 with an in the meantime outdated MS Office version — now she switched back to Windows, as she has to work with Windows operating systems primary for work related reasons.
She asked for help setting up the new machine, which seemed to be a little challenging as she lives abroad. So we connected via Facetime to initially guide through the WiFi setup, then subscribing to my Office365 Family account, to finally switch over to Skype; to better support her. Yes, I did not installed TeamViewer or any other remote support service; my intention was to guide to facilitate the self learning effect.
So we started activating the Office suite and then setting up the Edge browser. Then we came across the question: “what is Bing?”. My first reaction was: “imagine it’s a search engine like google, but way worse” and showed her some Bing memes. We laughed. But still the question is around: what is bing, and why this strange name. My mother is a very smart person who started learning english a couple of years ago; so we where eager to get down to the meaning…
The strange name
If you would query your next online dictionary for the meaning of “Bing” you will be surprised — especially if you’re not a native speaker. Here’s an excerpt from https://dict.cc/(https://www.dict.cc/?s=bing) translated from english to german.
NOUN a bing | bings
— bing [Br.] [Scot.] [dial.] [heap, pile] → Haufen {m}
— bing [Br.] [Scot.] [dial.] [of wood, corn, etc.] → Bündel {n}
— bing [dialect] [pit heap] → Bergehalde {f}
— bada bing [Am.] [coll.] → schwuppdiwupp
— med.Bing reflex [Bing’s sign] → Bing-Reflex {m}
— med.Bing’s sign [also: Bing sign] → Bing-Zeichen {n}
— Bing / Bing’s test [tuning-fork test] → Bing-Test {m} [Stimmgabelprüfung]
The latter I understand: if you found something: Bing! Like a lightbulb getting switched on. But what does a “Bing” do in order to deliver you the “Bing” on success? When I ask Bing to deliver the results of a search, does bing bing in order to Bing!? Well I cannot bing in order to find something, like I would “google” it — but what I could do: is ask Cortana to help me find an information or solution to my question.
You may ask: why is it ok for you to use the term “google” to describe a search query but not “bing”? That’s mostly because “google” is a fictional word with no particular human-made meaning in it. If I would ask Bing to give me an answer I basically ask my question to a pile — of what? What is in the pile? Or do I ask a mountain for answers? I guess we had that a lot in mystical stories over the last thousands of years.
Google evolved into something like a personal assistant over the last years and without being bound to a real-life-term it will left room open for interpretation. Microsoft already has a personal assistance — Cortana.
Where some of you may only got first introduced to that kind of assistant playing the Halo games over the last decade.
Why can’t Cortana take care of your search queries?
I don’t know yet. I really don’t understand that on Windows, where Cortana is built in: when you type something into the search bar you could be redirected to Bing. That feels inconsistent. Especially if we have to assume that technologies of Cortana are the artificial intelligence layers beneath Bing search engine.
One reason could be: Cortana is intended to be the Windows exclusive AI assitant — as they did not released any support updates for other platforms in 2020 (e.g.: iOS and Android). Putting Cortana on the web could induce that you have an AI assistant on your fingertips in your browser. But hey, why not — sounds like a brilliant idea for me.
Is Cortana the sexist wet dream of computer nerds?
Some could argue that! Especially her visual representation in the Halo games world will be perceived as sexist and misogynic. The more it is time to befriend Cortana and to get rid of the sexy appealing visual representations. Yes we all understand she is an artificial intelligence which is “sexy” in terms of intelligence and competence — and that “she” was developed to appeal gamers primary.
But we should not forget that Cortana is now more than a fictive character role of a video game anymore. She did developed in a full featured (as imagined in the games) artificial intelligence and assistance of human Microsoft Windows users.
Hey Microsoft! The domain: www.cortana.ms is still on sale!
Yes, the domain https://www.cortana.ms/ is still available [L1]; unlike https://www.cortana.com/ which is owned by a company from Washington DC since 1995 [L2]. So hurry up and purchase at least the .ms one. I guess you could also buy out the other domain for a couple of hundreds grants (peanuts).
So why should Microsoft rebrand Bing to Cortana, or integrate Bing into Cortana?
Well, for the most obvious reason: consistency. One service that powers the other, but still requires context switches of the user — nah, can’t be good for long. 2.83% market share speaks for itself. (Okay! I admit, my personal favourite: DuckDuckGo is way below, but that’s another story)
Every Windows User could be a potential Cortana search engine user, if integrated the right way. Following some basic rules like: consistency, similarity, quality of results, and usability. And I would argue that this would not only stop with Windows users. Every Edge user on other operating systems could be a potential user and profiteur of a seamless integration of an artificial intelligence and a plainly better search engine.
Let’s see what the future will bring. In my opinion: the brand name Bing should be discontinued.
Sources & Links:
[S1] Image; Google vs. Bing Meme: https://www.demilked.com/google-vs-bing-memes-funny/ | http://static.demilked.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/5dc91ec4ca3a9-google-vs-bing-memes-4-5dc4142ea1052__700.jpg
[S2] Image; Cortana Logo: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortana_(Software)| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Microsoft_Cortana_transparent.svg
[S3] Image; Search Engine Market Share September 2020: (Nov. 15, 2020) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine| https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/graph/png/Search_engine/0/881919a1e6405169c01d58d7d4070e89f1d3dc6f.png
[L1] Source; Cortana.ms Domain: (Nov. 15, 2020) https://whois.domaintools.com/cortana.ms
[L2] Source; Cortana.com Domain (Nov. 15, 2020) https://whois.domaintools.com/cortana.com
Disclaimer: This article is a personal opinion and was not sponsored. All statements may depend on facts but are opinions and should be perceived as such. Also I don’t use affiliate links.
No animals were harmed during the writing process.
Cheers //Patric
