Microsoft has built a new search engine that offers a potentially longer and deeper search experience, and it is almost certainly designed to challenge chief competitor, Google, in both user engagement and revenues.The engine, called Bing, will be available on June 3. While initially similar to standard search--an entry page with a search box--the way Bing delivers results offers important differences, centered on observations of consumer behavior with search engines. If successful, Bing will contrast the Google ( GOOG - news - people ) search model of a brief engagement on a search results page (with lots of visits, and lots of search ads, over the course of a day) with a longer time inside the search engine, finding specific information.
The search queries lead with so-called "authoritative" links, such as a company's home page, including the customer service phone number (apparently, a common reason to look up a company). Google, which favors an analysis of Web page links in determining importance, may have a company page further down among its results, and no default to a customer service number.
Enter a flight number in Bing's search box, and the current status of that flight (en route, say, or perhaps delayed) is listed at the top. In addition, on these and other results links, descriptions of some Web pages include digests of their content (for now, only for Wikipedia and Microsoft's ( MSFT - news - people ) Encarta encyclopedia--other sites have to give permission for this feature).
The right hand side of the page has search ads similar to Google's. On the left side, Microsoft has an "explore" feature, including what it calls "quicktabs," that offer additional information relative to a specific query. Call up a singer's name, say, and the tabs will include links to lyrics, videos or articles. The images have an "infinite scroll," instead of a few images per page, and a page of videos reached inside the search engine can be individually played by sweeping the computer cursor over a specific one.
Seek a town, and quicktab choices might be maps, attractions or hotels, among others. In products, quicktabs offers links to a shopping page that looks similar to an Amazon.com ( AMZN - news - people ) shopping page, including user reviews for products culled from reviews across the Web. Travel queries bring up competitive airfares, similar to Expedia ( EXPE - news - people ) or Orbitz ( OWW - news - people ) sites, with rebates for purchasing from some sites, and a machine-generated prediction of whether these fares will rise or fall.
While the initial technical innovations will grab attention, the changes to search and Web business are potentially more profound. Microsoft is culling information from a number of other Web sites, and instead of just offering information about them, it melds different sites to lead consumers closer to a moment of action. The company also appears open to negotiating with sites for content that Microsoft can offer up in its search (either for snippets, rebates or deals).
Putting so much activity inside search, instead of leading people to pages where content providers hope to benefit from ads, challenges existing (and often, faltering) Internet business models that put ads on sites through Google's AdSense service.
"Advertising as a business model on the Internet is less proven than the conventional wisdom," Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said Thursday at Dow Jones' All Things D conference where he previewed the engine. Microsoft, he said, would like to "re-divide the value between the content providers, advertisers and the search engine providers ... Hey, let's have that conversation."
