Posts Tagged ‘Bing’

This post is my gratuitous offer to Microsoft to help them track down websites of piracy advocates who store and/or share activation cracks and similar nuisances. This all started as an experiment to see how many ways I could find a particular file and I’ve come to the conclusion that Microsoft probably either isn’t implementing half the methods I’ve devised or they don’t have the time/interest or a person/team in-house or outsourced dedicated to formulating solutions like this. I’ve cherry-picked two methods to delve into, then listed some action items to follow through with in taking said methods into consideration.

I would use Bing for these examples, but I’m still waiting for an all-encompassing guide for using advanced syntax usage in Bing. Usually, when I try to replicate my Google methods in Bing (yes, I make sure I’m using Bing’s syntax where applicable), the results are dismal. Anyway, I’d like to think someone at Microsoft will see this for what it is and bring me in to really get creative with this stuff, because there’s a whooooooole lot more where this came from! But I won’t hold my breath, because in the words of one Tony Lucca, “if I held my breath, you’d be the death of me.” lol.

Method 1: Use the following query in Google (I’ve even hyper-linked it for your pleasure):

 

intitle:index.of removewat21 | removewat22 | removewat*

 

Results: A large number of personal websites where they have the RemoveWAT file stored and directly accessible for anyone to immediately download.

Method 2: Go to Google. Click “more” and then click “Blogs.” Now, perform a search using the following query and then, on the left-hand side, click, “Sorted by date” (yes, I’ve hyper-linked this one as well already using the aforementioned steps):

 

removewat21 | removewat22 | removewat*

 

Results: An ever-expanding list of blogs linking to the file(s) you’re interested in getting off the internet. Most of them link to file sharing services, but that’s a major score as well.

Action Items: Bearing in mind the methods above, the next thing is to gather a list of as many variables of the RemoveWAT file name as you can, such as scene release names, shortened versions, etc. and interchange them throughout the queries. Rinse and repeat the process with other activation crack technologies and voila. From there, of course, gather contact information from somewhere on the site, perform a whois search, etc. to contact the individual(s) to remove the file or simply send a DMCA take-down request to the host or whatever legal actions Microsoft has to adhere to.

Also, you can get more extensive with the research portion and use Yahoo Site Explorer or SEOmoz’s Open Site Explorer to search for inbound links to the links harvested via method 1. The results are a mixed bag where that’s concerned, but I’ve found that Google typically yields those results after spidering the site from a completely separate entry point, so whether or not the person posted the file in a public forum or simply posted something completely irrelevant and Google happened to spider its way to the particular file is up in the air until additional research is performed.

Oh, and while you’re at it, you might as well try to make this process as automated, productive and facile as possible by setting up some Google Alerts (or something similar) for all the terms/queries you come up with and keep an eye on when new sites are indexed with those file names. What a great way of finding and getting rid of those files from (probably) a completely untapped avenue.

There! I’ve officially put my personal information-finding and off-page SEO research methods to good use for Microsoft’s anti-piracy endeavors. =) But bear in mind, the aforementioned methods and action items are just the tip of the iceberg. If I so chose, I could use just about any Microsoft product for free without ever touching a P2P application or utilizing a crack — all thanks to Google and absolutely careless individuals out there. There’s a lot out there; you just have to know how to find it.

Happy hunting, Microsoft.

-Stephen Chapman

http://www.msftkitchen.com

Check this out. While taking a look at the traffic to/from my site, I decided to check the percentage of that traffic arriving from search engines. Of that traffic, I was pleasantly surprised to see just how good Bing appears to be doing! Check out the following graph:

While those results are unusual for today (the percentage is typically in Google’s favor by a wide margin, which it is here, but only when you tally all of Google’s sites together), what I have noticed over time is a small but steady increase of Bing traffic to my site. Much more than I *ever* saw out of MSN, that’s for sure. I know I’m simply mirroring what a lot of us have already said, but Microsoft seems to have done things right this time around with Bing. It makes me smile in my heart just a little bit.

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com

This is more an observation than anything else, but I’m highly optimistic about the outlook for Microsoft where the web is concerned in 2010. Why? Follow along to find out.

Those of you who have been around since the early days of the web when competition really started getting heated between Microsoft and Netscape know how important online market share is to Microsoft. And these days, it’s all about advertising. Whoever has the most web real estate to run the most ads on with the most agencies/companies contains the midas touch and that’s all there is to it. This week at PDC, Microsoft took us on a journey through the beginnings and vision of Internet Explorer 9. They also unveiled Silverlight 4 in all of its majesty and I have to say… I’m extremely excited about it. Having time to digest all of the information from PDC 2009, I can’t help but run the following equation through my mind:

Internet Explorer 9 + Silverlight 4 + Bing = The Year of Microsoft on the Web in 2010

If (and that’s a huge, “if”) Microsoft can pull off their vision for IE9, I may very well make the jump back to the browser I used to know and love (IE7 is about the time I jumped ship to FireFox, then Opera). Now that Microsoft has spilled the beans about hardware rendering in their browser, I’m sure every other browser out there has now shifted their model to include the very same technology. It’s off to the races and while another company may beat Microsoft to the market, I think Microsoft has a couple of tricks up their sleeve. After all, their new philosophy is to say as little as possible and over-deliver when the time comes (the polar opposite of the Windows Longhorn mentality, basically). With that in mind, I don’t see Microsoft stepping up to the plate with IE9 so soon without having full confidence that – even *if* someone else beats them to the market with similar technology under the hood – they will do what they have set out to do and they will do it better than everyone else. One would hope, at least.

Let’s step away from Internet Explorer 9 for a moment and talk Bing.

Bing. As a brand, it’s starting to catch on. I couldn’t stand the name initially, but it has managed to grow on me. As a search engine, I’m not sure that it will ever fully replace Google for me, but I find myself using Bing more and more. It provides additional results for me that Google doesn’t (and for how I use Google, that’s huge) and for shopping and travel, I look no further. Where I’m concerned as a consumer, Bing has the shopping/travel market share 100%. Also, I’ve spotted Bing as being the catalyst for traffic to my site more and more. Sure, it’s a very low percentage compared to Google, but it has knocked Yahoo out of ranking. Slowly but surely, Bing keeps creeping up in market share. I hope that trend continues as Bing is truly worthy of being an accessory to Google (as I said, I doubt it will ever be a full-on replacement for Google, but you never know what can happen years down the road).

Now, this is the point in which I note the obvious combination of Google and Firefox. Although Firefox has increasingly become a sluggish product for me (even on my blazing new gaming rig), I still prefer it over IE8. Even in compatibility mode, I notice a number of the pages I frequent acting strangely in IE8. Now, what are the odds of someone actually using and enjoying a combination of Bing and IE9? Google has become a habit. It’s almost instinct to have Google as your main page, so to change that behavior, it would take quite a concious act – one which I may be willing to go through with when IE9 finally drops. Once again, I doubt the combination of Google/Firefox will ever drop below the combination of any other search engine/web browser, but it’s an interesting thought none-the-less.

Lastly, we have Silverlight 4. What an exciting time for developers and Microsoft alike. Silverlight 4 takes Silverlight well-outside the realm of being labeled an Adobe Flash clone and finally places it into a territory all its own (they have been pulling away from that comparison all along, but Silverlight 4 finally commands all the respect Silverlight deserves). If developers can jump on the Silverlight/WCF boat and really help the technology take off, it will be to the benefit of everyone! It almost seems foreign that a technology like Silverlight could come along this late in the game, best Adobe Flash, and become the new standard in interactive/high-def/streaming media, but I really hope it does. And with the rumors of Windows Mobile 7 containing Silverlight controls (at the very least, there’s Silverlight for Mobile), I do not see this technology going away anytime soon (and that’s a good thing).

There is so much more I have to learn about all of the technologies above, so I’m not trying to pretend to be some expert on it all. These are just my personal observations and a culmination of thoughts from the excitement generated by putting all of this together. It seems that if Microsoft was/is ever to finally gain/reclaim web browser and search engine market share, 2010 is going to be the time for it. Now, it may not happen all at once in 2010. It will take time, just as Bing has. Unfortunately, there’s a negative stigma out there about Microsoft’s products in regards to the web. It has almost become a fad to hate Internet Explorer and any type of search engine that Microsoft creates, but now is the time when people should step back and actually give this stuff a chance (or a second-chance, as the case may be for IE9). Yes, at the end of the day, Microsoft is a business. They want to make as much as they can, but then again, that’s no different from any other company. The trick is to put a product out there that will not only be useful, but possibly life-changing… and when I say, “life-changing,” that can be as simple as something someone can leverage in addition to what they already know and love.

I was sold the moment Bing provided results for an exclusive for me that Google failed to. As for how I use the web, that’s a product I’ll stick with. Best of luck to Microsoft in 2010. So many people love to hate them, but I, for one, am excited to see what they put out to enrich the lives of those who give their products the fair shot they deserve. Feel free to chime in with your comments and let me know what you think.

Oh, and for the first time ever, I’m compelled to attend a MIX conference. It’s shaping up to be fantastic next year!

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com

For those who like saving money, read onward!

With the news and excitement surrounding Bing having died down to not even a whisper, I thought I would cook up a post to serve both as a reminder for those who are familiar with and those who are new to Bing’s cashback program. I was familiar with it, but at the time of Bing’s launch, the cashback program wasn’t near as fruitful as it is now. Honestly, the cashback program has become the most exciting feature of Bing for me! Why? Because I do a lot of online shopping. Naturally, we all have our preferred merchants who we find typically have the lowest price of anyone out there. This is *really* where Bing’s cashback action comes into play, because I get cashback for just about every single one of my preferred outlets: Buy.com, Newegg, Amazon – you name it, they probably have some kind of cashback percentage for it. Heck, I’ve even purchased items from Ebay sellers who had Bing cashback discounts! For reference, you can find a massive list of participating online retailers right on this section of Bing.

Example: I’ve recently had my eye on the SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4870 Vapor-X 2GB GPU.

First, I try searching Google Shopping and sort the results by lowest price first. Then, I did the same with Bing Shopping. The results? Not counting Google Shopping’s one false-positive (the acmemicro.com link is actually a 1GB model; not the 2GB), Bing has the lowest price from Newegg with cashback factored in. Even with going to Newegg and factoring in shipping, I still come in at equally as much as Google’s first lowest of $194 (antaresdigital.com, but the site doesn’t show you how much shipping is). For good measure, I searched for the same card on Amazon.com, Buy.com and pricewatch.com. Amazon was priced higher, Buy didn’t have the card, and low and behold, the lowest-priced card on pricewatch.com is our $194 friend from Google Shopping’s results (antaresdigital.com)! And would you look at that; we have a shipping price included! It’s $10, bringing their total to $204. Newegg’s total with Bing cashback and shipping is $194, so there you go. While those aren’t savings that are going to allow you to go crazy buying scratch-off tickets at your local gas station, this is just one example. More results like this one will add up over time and there are *plenty* out there where you can save in the 10′s of dollars (and like I said, that’s especially awesome when you find cashback like that on items that are already priced the lowest you can find on the net).

So, if you’re new to Bing’s cashback program or you haven’t checked it out since Bing’s launch, go ahead and give it a shot! Take about 5 things you want to buy, find the lowest price you can via Google, then go to Bing’s shopping section of the site and search for the same item. Even *if* you find your item priced lower elsewhere directly from a vendor, with Bing’s cashback applied to the same item from a different vendor with a higher cost, you still may very well end up with a lower price when all is said and done! Soooo… that’s it! Go have a field day shopping with Bing!

ATTENTION DEVELOPERS: This post just made me think of a cool gadget that I’m sure one of you talented programmers out there could whip up. How about a Bing gadget that will allow you to type the name of an item you’re searching for and have it return Bing’s lowest price on that item (with or without cashback) which you can then click on to be taken to that vendor’s site? Maybe something like this already exists… but if not, I know I’d certainly help you promote it!

-Stephen
http://msftkitchen.com