Bing Emulates Google’s 411 Service

Today Microsoft announced Bing411, which is essentially voice search powered by Tellme. This can be accessed at 1-800-BING-411 or 1-800-246-4411.

"More than simple local business search, Bing 411 makes it easier to get on-the-go information: driving directions, traffic reports, sports scores, stock quotes, weather reports, and even information the cheapest place near you to buy gas," says Yvonne Chou, Senior Program Lead for Bing411.

According to Chou, Bing411 can be called to find a business and connect to it or get a text message with a link to a map, which can also be sent to friends. The service also includes star ratings of businesses based on reviews from other consumers.

Though the service was officially announced today, PC Magazine had an opportunity to review it recently and Mark Hachman with that publication says it doesn’t do a great job of differentiating between actual and sponsored search results.

He compares the service to Google’s 1-800-GOOG-411, and says while Google is actually better in the area mentioned above, Bing is "at least comparable if not slightly superior to what Google has accomplished."

That is certainly an interesting endorsement, especially considering over half of people (from one survey) can imagine using Bing over Google. Meanwhile, Bing has already taken the number 2 spot in search market share according to StatCounter.

There are 8 Comments. Add Yours.

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Digital Mogul
June 8, 2009 at 4:40 pm

First, as a former investor, I am a huge pessimist to anything that Microsoft presents – For once, I would like to see Microsoft INVENT something original and put long term marketing and support behind the product. I was using GOOG 411 about 4 years prior to Microsoft’s imitation Bing. Meanwhile, Google continues superiority in Search and Apple just released the $99 iPhone and both are forging ahead, yet again. Microsoft is full of archaic ideas and Steve Ballmer should have been fired long ago…Such as the way of the dinosaur – extinct.

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Guest
June 7, 2009 at 1:05 pm

How awesome is traffic reports? That’s not on goog 411, right? I can’t get live traffic updates on my basic gps, so that’s really handy!

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Document Scanning Services
June 7, 2009 at 10:51 am

I like fair competition. It promotes inovation. Time will tell!

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psp repair
June 7, 2009 at 9:48 am

Personally, with these available features can really help its users/clients. Well, I’m hoping that I’ll be satisfied once I start using their service.

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Software For Download
June 6, 2009 at 3:16 pm

Now Bing has taken a second position after Google and put Yahoo! on third place

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Quikboy
June 6, 2009 at 11:05 am

Uh, Live Search 411 existed before Bing 411, and it’s been there for awhile. Bing 411 is basically a rebranded Live Search 411, so it’s not emulating Google’s service.

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  Affiliate Marketing Blog
  June 7, 2009 at 2:42 pm
  
  ^ Good call.
  
  The official Press Release:
  http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/oct07/10-15OSBUpdatesPR.mspx
  
  While it IS a different number, it’s not a “new” feature from Microsoft.
  
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  Bartjan
  June 8, 2009 at 3:31 am
  
  Exactly what I wanted to say when I read this blog in my RSS reader
  http://www.livesearch411.com/ asn you can see at the archive http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.livesearch411.com it has been around for quite some time.