I have started using bing and I like how it works and I’m not going into comparing Bing with google as I like both Search Engines. However after using it there is a couple of things that I’d like to touch on as it affects businesses with websites and without.
1. No Auto Map?? - Now I figured this would be standard with any good search engine that if you search for a business n
ame with location information that if there it should show it on the map. I was disappointed to find that when doing this type of search that wasn’t readily available.
The Search - elitegd saint john new brunswick
Bing Result
Google Result
How this effects you? - Well if your like me and you have a website doesn’t really effect you to much as you can see i’m showing in the top 4 returned results directing them to my website. However if you do a search and someone only has the Local Business Listing through Google Maps you now won’t show up at all.
The Search - laundry mat saint john new brunswick
Bing Result
Google Result
If there was any Laundry mat with even a basic website up they would receive 100% of the web traffic from Bing as currently none of them show up at all, even though all three are listed on Google Maps. This is why you don’t want to always focus on Google but focus on reaching all search engines.
2. Bing Local Listing Center
Now I was very dissapointed when I went to add my own business that being from Canada there is no way to add yourself to Bing’s Local Listing Center, similar to google’s Local Business Center I have tried doing multiple searches to figure out a way for Canadian businesses to add their listing to the Bing Local Listing Center and haven’t found a way. This should be a staple as well for any real competitive search engines, to at least be able to take submissions if your going to offer local searches. Hopefully this is just in the works and once I find a way I will be doing a post on adding your business to both Bing Local Listing Center, and Google’s Local Business Center.
Recommendation if you are relying on Google Map ( Local Business Center) to deliver your information invest in a small informational website so that you can make sure that other search engines that people use will direct people to your business and not a competitor’s.
Stay tuned i’ll be doing another reaching your target audience for Laundry Mats next after realizing this when researching for this post.
General
bing, bing local listing center, bing map, Google, Google Map, informational websites, local business center, Microsoft, Search, search engines
The Consumer Electronics Show kicked off with Windows 7, announcing it’s beta and expected release in 2010, Microsoft is looking to correct the issues/concern’s with it’s current Vista operating system. Most of the bugs with Vista have been fixed but it has all of the baggage of problems and already the target by all fan boys of other systems to make it appear as a less than equal system.
So after soliciting tons of feedback Windows 7 is boasting some new features recommended by the community and correcting the issues that originally plagued Vista.
- Improved taskbar
- Jump Lists
- IE 8
- Windows Live etc.
Quick preview See all of Whats New
Improved taskbar and full-screen previews
The taskbar at the bottom of your screen is what you use to switch between the applications you’ve got open. In Windows 7 you can set the order in which the icons appear and they’ll stay put. They’re easier to see, too. Click once on the new large icons or bigger preview thumbnails and you’re ready to go. You can even see a full screen preview before switching to the window.
Get the picture: See what's open with previews and easily control your Windows experience with the new Taskbar.
Electronics
Microsoft, Vista, Windows 7
Well I was reading through CBC today and saw an article titled “Apple cutting copy protection and prices on iTunes” and I was like wow since they are really pushing forward with the music industry knocking songs below $0.99 and removing copy right that sounded huge and great to me.
However I was quickly disappointed with CBC’s unfair Apple Fanboy’ism,
Apple did work with the music industry to drop the drm but the price cut is determined by the music industry and apple is also letting them to chose to up the cost to $1.29 per song.
“Apple’s top marketing executive, Philip Schiller, said iTunes songs would come in three pricing tiers: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. Record companies will choose the prices, which marks a significant change, since Apple previously made all songs sell for 99 cents.”
This is another example of the CBC website making things look good for apple even though the article shows it’s not all positive. However whenever there is a chance to jump on Microsoft they don’t miss it.
CBC was so quick right before Christmas to bring up the old 360 issue of the red ring of death “The Red Scare“. Even though Microsoft extended the warranty to 3 years for replacement and fixed the problem so anyone who bought one in the last year doesn’t have this problem anymore.
The most recently jumped all over the the Microsoft Zune 30 problem, however they seem to take it easy on apple and apple products along with making any article show up in a more positive light for the company.
Electronics
apple, itunes, Microsoft, mp3, music, zune
Well everyone has heard by now the fiasco with the First Gen Zune 30’s
, that has corrected it’self and everyone jumped on the band wagon to blame Microsoft. Well this is unfair their first gen model in this is the big problem everyone has which wasn’t solely produced by Microsoft, if you do a bit of research you find that they purchased hardware from other companies that actually contained the problem. However every mac user has just bit of ammo to use to complain just a bit about the Zune, they quickly forget the variety of issues with the first gen ipod’s - cracked screens, battery not holding power and apple saying upgrade to 2nd gen and your problems will be solved. Enough of the over blogged and talked about issue of the Zune 30 before you blog and say how microsoft dropped the ball and didn’t do a good QA, look into the issue more and you will see that for the 1st gen they aren’t the only company involved just the one with their logo on it.
I don’t blame the Apple Fanboys (I mean even I love my Ipod Touch) they just can’t help to jump on anything by Microsoft…… but I have to say my 4 gb zune is a better mp3 player, considering i can at least add and remove songs on my zune on all of my computers zune collections, my ipod touch only lets me add songs to it and i can’t remove them back to another of my owned computers. I could jail break it, so that I could copy my purchased songs onto my laptop but that isn’t a legal option. My zune is smart enough to detect that my songs don’t have drm so i am able to copy them to all of the computers of my choice without limitation( I always make sure to purchase drm free mp3’s after mistakenly purchasing drm wmv’s).
I also run a Xbox 360 and my computer and laptop both run vista which my Zune connected to and synced wirelessly without a problem. So as long as my zune is on I can access every track, video, and picture stored on the zune. Another cool feature if I want one of my friends with a zune to check out my latest favorite MC Lars track I can just open the song on my zune and send it to a friend, they accept it and it wirelessly transfers them the song. They have 3 days to listen to the track to determine if they like it enough to get the song for themselves to own.
Those long lost feature of fm radio is also safely included on a zune so that you don’t have to be 
concerned if your bored with the many tracks your zune can hold. Now if the Zune Pass would just come to Canada I would never have a reason to ever use my ipod as an mp3 player, as that would give me access to millions of songs at any time.
Electronics
ipod, Ipod Touch, Microsoft, xbox 360, zune
