iphone 3gs

Just pre-ordered iphone 3gs from ATT.com with 35% bing cashback. It is a nice deal. But remember to disable the adblock if you are using firefox.

Just "bing" att wireless, and the att store will show up as a sponsor link with 35% bing cashback.

Unfortunately, upgrade not eligible for bing cashback, and only one iphone per address from online. The phone will be shipped after 6/19.

What can money buy? Search engine version

Via TechCruch, Bing overtook yahoo's #2, but only for one day.



Maybe it is not the best way to spend millions of dollars. It is not too difficult to buy hype, but much more difficult to buy loyalty. Even though BING is good, but it is not great yet. It is just another but-its-not-google search engine. We would like to keep it around so that google will not sleep on their technology front, and we can use it as an alternative from time to time.

Seth explains Bing

Seth made two important points. First, there is need out there for next google, because google is not broken. $100M could be much better spent (to change the world) instead of buying a brand.

The next Google

Microsoft, home of the Zune, has just announced that they're going to launch Bing, a rebranding and reformatting of their search engine. So far, they've earmarked $100 million just for the marketing.

Bing, of course, stands for But It's Not Google. The problem, as far as I can tell, is that it is trying to be the next Google. And the challenge for Microsoft is that there already is a next Google. It's called Google.

Google is not seen as broken by many people, and a hundred million dollars trying to persuade us that it is, is money poorly spent. In times of change, the rule is this:

Don't try to be the 'next'. Instead, try to be the other, the changer, the new.

If Microsoft adds a few features and they prove popular, how long precisely will it take Google to mirror or even leapfrog those features?

With $100 million, you could build (or even buy) something remarkable. Something that spread online without benefit of a lot of yelling and shouting. Something that changes the game in a fundamental way. The internet works best when you build a network, not when you buy a brand. In fact, I can't think of one successful online brand that was built with cash.

[For an answer to the popular question: "The next Seth Godin" and a few more pithy Q&A, click here]

[For a preview of the real next Google, check out this presentation of Google Wave. As a presentation geek, I need to point out that the intro (the first 2 minutes) is a fantastic example of how someone (you?) can stand up in front of 4,000 people with no slides and make a significant introduction with no hesitation and no apologies.]