Bing, Brewin, Obama and DISA

Microsoft's Bing search engine went live today, and I decided to test it against Google with my all-time favorite search term, "Bob Brewin."

I'm flattered that the first item returned in the Bob Brewin Bing search was my Nextgov biography.

I guess this is relevant, particularly if a searcher wants to know the difference between me and a guy with the same name, who serves as the chief technology officer of Sun Microsystems, whom I refer to as "The Other Bob Brewin." The Other Bob Brewin did not pop up until the fifth item in the Bob Brewin Bing search.

The lead item in the Google Bob Brewin search was much newsier and timely: my May 29 column on the release of the Officer of the Director of National Intelligence's Consumer's Guide to intelligence. The Other Bob Brewin from Sun grabbed second place with his executive bio, followed by my ordinary worker bee bio in third place.

Based on this search, I'd rank Bing and Google about even in terms of helping folks in search land to figure out exactly who Bob Brewin is, but I give Google the nod on producing the best results on what this Bob Brewin produces.

I then searched for "Obama" on Bing and Google, and based on this search I would say that both need to tweak their algorithms. Both search engines put in first place the Obama/Biden campaign Web site. From my perspective, that's not exactly the most relevant hit for someone who has been president for nearly five months.

Google ranked today's news about Obama fifth - a story about his trip to the Mideast today from National Public Radio. Bing had some Mideast news about Obama ranked third, but it was a Saturday story from WorldNetDaily -- not exactly the most reliable source.

As someone who searches for topical news, I would give both search engines an "F" for relevance and topicality on the Obama search.

I then cranked in DISA, the acronym for my favorite agency, the Defense Information Systems Agency, into both search engines. I must say, Bing returned results for DISA that I had never imagined. For example, Bing helped me discover that DISA, among other things, is a type of orchid found in South Africa, Madagascar and the West Indian Ocean.

In a column next to its search results page, Bing presents "related searches," which for DISA included a link to DISA Records, a Mexican record company owned by Univision, the Spanish language TV broadcaster.

Jon Anderson, the spokesman for the Defense Department's DISA, told me he had never heard of DISA the orchid or DISA the record company until Bing came on the scene. He liked the orchid metaphor, which indicates the kinds of communications services his DISA provides to Defense.

Google did not offer either the orchid or record company results on the first page of my DISA search there, but I did find a site for Disa Garner, who coaches the woman's volleyball team ay James Madison University in Virginia.

Both Google and Bing placed the DISA the Defense Department agency first in a search, with most of the top results related to the Defense organization, not orchids, record companies or volleyball coaches. So I rank them even on the DISA search.

This search exercise proved one thing: It's going to be a while before either Bing or Google succeed in organizing "all the world's knowledge," as the Google folks like to say, in a way that does not send folks on a digital snipe hunt.