Microsoft Bing Gets a New Logo and Identity
Over the last several years, Microsoft has been modifying the design of its product names to be more in line with each other, with a cleaner and sleeker style. Microsoft has just unveiled a redesigned logo for its search engine, along with a changed, new homepage design, which is aimed to integrate the "One Microsoft" vision.
The brand features a simpler typeface "created to be simple, real and direct" that better matches the font used on other Microsoft products, Scott Erickson, senior director, brand and creative at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post.
The company also tweaked how it displays search results, moving from three columns to two.
One of the keys to Microsoft's new approach is Page Zero which is aimed at getting users more useful answers to queries without waiting to receive a traditional page of search results. Building on to the traditional autofill suggestion that appears as user's type their queries, Bing will also immediately provide necessary information and options for exploration as users input their query.
Bing has introduced a new feature called Pole Position at the top of the page for "high-confidence" queries, in which it's confident that it has clear data related to a user's intent. The new feature is designed to quickly answer questions like what the weather is in a certain city, with the temperature appearing in big type so one sees it instantly.
Microsoft is also making modifications to Snapshots, a feature introduced a year ago that quickly shows a quick summary about people, places, and things in addition to search links. The redesigned feature has been clubbed with Sidebar, which furnishes Knowledge Graph-like information from user's social network contacts. The recent combination is designed to give users the entire supporting context they'll need for any given query.
Microsoft is also making alterations to the logo and look of the search service. It is part of the company's strategy of spotlighting Bing as being the search engine that powers a variety of Microsoft products, including Office and Windows 8.1, rather than stressing Bing's role as a Web destination.
Microsoft, which is situated in Redmond, Washington, said in the month of July its online-services business, mainly advertising revenue from Bing and other online properties, declared an operating loss of $1.28 billion in the fiscal year ended June 30.
This strategy shift is mainly targeted at closing the gap with its rivals. In August, Google accounted for about 67 percent of U.S. searches in comparison with Microsoft's 17.9 percent, while Yahoo trails both at 11.4 percent, according to market researcher ComScore.
