There is little doubt that Google, king of search engines, has become genericized with internet searching, and rightfully so – given its dominance and populatiry with over 80% of web browsing users. Microsoft’s MSN Search/Live Search has  been the 3rd wheel in the search game  since a little after the turn of the century, when Googling spread like wild fire. Since then Microsoft’s attempts have dropped from over 30% market share, to stuggling to hold on to a mere 5%. However, in the recent year, Microsoft has made many changes in an attempt keep itself in the ring and is poised to try and take second seed – given the slowly dying Yahoo. They have introduced a “cashback” promotion, which quite literally, pays you to search and shop using Live Search, and have annouced plans to revolutionize the search engine as we know it, with an engine codenamed “Kumo”

Apperently though, the name “Kumo” just didn’t capture the emotions Microsoft was looking for in a search engine name, one could almost say it is to serious. Arguabley you need a name that sounds slightly silly and incorperates a double “O” somewhere (Google/Yahoo). According to Advertising Age, MS is set to rename its new search engine to “Bing”.  Silly, yes,  ”oo”, no and you can’t quite see yourself “Binging” it, but along with the new name, the report claims Microsoft is doing what they do best, and flinging money at the issue, with a $80-$100 million dollar ad campaign. 

Unlike Microsoft’s recent rebuttle TV Ad’s, which take calculated jab’s at Apple products, Microsoft ad campaign offers  users an advanced world of internet searching, offering to solve the their web problems.

“If you grab the average user off the street and ask them, ‘Does search suck?’ I think they’d say no. They don’t know what else can be done,” said Shashi Seth, a former Google executive who is now chief revenue officer at Cooliris. “They think search does a pretty good job, and if you could prove otherwise with a product that’s differentiated, people will sit up and take notice.”

Either way, with Yahoo market share sinking close to 3% in the past year and other search engines making up a combined total of less than 4% Microsoft is in a ripe position to take a good chunk of pie if they can develop something that offers a unique and attractive experience – otherwise one can easily expect Google to continue it’s upward trend and inevitably… take over the world