No, this does not mean that Yahoo! the site is going away. Far from it. It means that Y! has officially offloaded it to Microsoft.

Yahoo! has made it very clear these days (and their CEO even said so) that they are not a search company, so now Y! is all about content.

This is part of the reason why Y! has been making major changes over the past few years – mostly in the form of cutting the chaff from the wheat, so to speak. Yahoo! 360 is gone, Geocities will be gone in October, Yahoo! Live the short-lived broadcasting service (like Ustream/BlogTV/etc.) closed in ‘08, Jumpcut, another Y! property, is gone, and so on. And there are plenty more.

Y! has been dropping a whole lot of hammers, no question. They want to concentrate on things that will make them grow as a company, and search is definitely not one of them.

At this point I personally do not have faith in the Y! brand due to the fact they can’t seem to find a winner with anything new they produce. And instead of taking their existing services and improving upon them, they get dropped instead. For those of us that actually used those services, we as the users get screwed in the end because any effort we put into using it was for nothing. This is not exactly what we’d call a confidence booster in the Y! brand.

There are seven things from Y! that I know people use, that being mail, messenger, games, Flickr, maps, personals and answers – all of which have tenure. None of this stuff is new. In fact most of it is ancient, internet-wise.

Do you know anybody that uses OMG? Or real estate? Or Shine? Or Buzz? Or Green? If you said, "No, and um.. I’ve never heard of those Y! services", that wouldn’t surprise me a bit. The problem is that this new stuff is what Y! wants you to use. But the sad part is that had you not read it here, you most likely didn’t know they existed.

In comparison, when Google offers a new service, they let you know about it. The same is true for Microsoft. When something new comes around in the Windows Live system, you’re informed. Both these companies put a good effort into letting the masses know of the good/cool/interesting things they make. But as for Yahoo? Not so much. That’s a problem and hopefully one they will fix.

Is Yahoo’s decision to offload the search to Microsoft a good thing, or is this the beginning (or the continuation) of the end for Yahoo?

Bing is the new search engine web site from Microsoft. This is their attempt to put their name on the map concerning internet search, or said differently, Microsoft is trying to compete with Google. Again. Bing is the replacement for Live Search.

You can try it right now if you like. Just go to www.bing.com. Or, if you’d prefer a tour first, that’s here: http://www.discoverbing.com/tour/. Or, you can watch a video on the "decision engine".

What makes Bing different?

Two things: Organization and related results.

Example: A search for "tampa".

Using Google

Using Bing

Note the stuff on the left.

Weather, real estate, map, hotels, attractions, images. Bam.

Related searches. Not advertisements. "Things to do in Tampa", "City of Tampa", "Tampa Aquarium", "Tampa Tribune", "Tampa Jobs". Bam.

Search history below that. Bam. It’s all there in plain view.

Does Google have any of this? In fact it does, but it’s hidden. You have to click "Show options…" to get it, and then drill down even further for related searches. That’s inconvenient when Bing brings it all to you up front – without clutter or extra clicks.

The organization and related stuff in clear plain view on first result page is a big deal. It’s decidedly convenient. It also looks better and is easier to use.

With Bing, what that engine is trying to do (and does successfully do it) is not just give you results for what you search, but results that matter. It is an attempt to make search results more relevant to what you want to find. This is part of the "decision engine" they speak of.

There’s a lot more to Bing, but that covers the basics. I do in fact like using it because of the sidebar results. It is very convenient.

And yes I know there will be tons of people that say, "No way. I like Google." Well, that’s the same thing people said about Yahoo before Google, and look what happened. Am I saying Bing will overtake Google in market share? No. But it does put up a darn good alternative against the big G. Finally.