On Wednesday
If someone puts the term "Atlanta" in the search query box, for example, the results page offers the usual series of Internet links. But above all those is an "entity card" with a likely array of choices, among other things, a slideshow of the city, local weather reports, and, since Atlanta has the world's busiest airport, flight information. Clicking on any of these brings up that information on a "task page," which is still inside Bing.
In other words, one could work productively for several minutes inside the search engine. Compare that with the few seconds people typically spend on
"The central data and insight is that 50% of tasks are spent on long queries greater than 30 minutes," said Satya Nadella, senior vice president of Microsoft's online services division. "Sixty percent of sessions include four queries or more … people are trying to do more with search."
Naturally, Microsoft hopes the approach will resonate with customers, and presented some statistics (9.9% market share, up 1.9 percentage points in six months, and a young demographic) to show it is on the right track. More intriguing, though, is the way the focus on longer, sustained interactions, with the possibility of commerce inside the search engine, affects its strategic battle with Google.
Nadella showed almost no ads on the task pages at Wednesday's demo, a matter he said would be rectified. In fact, he allowed, ads in the task pages could be worth more than regular search ads, as the customer's intention is better known and she is likely nearer to a point of decision.
Microsoft could also offer vendors incentives to be on these pages instead of Google, much the way it is discussing exclusive content distribution deals with
Microsoft also showed efforts to extend the length of engagement with maps, offering more choices (such as nearby restaurants and parking, or blog posts and Twitter updates) with identified destinations. It has also introduced stunning graphics, from seamless street views to three-dimensional photo-realistic models you can manipulate, which makes it more fun to spend time with the map. The maps run on Silverlight, Microsoft's competitor to
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