NY Times Article: Bing Kicks Google in the Pants

The NY Times has an article on a new search "cold war" between Bing and Google. I think the article is pretty poorly done. The author paints Bing as an innovative upstart giving Google a "kick in the pants" and forcing it to play catch up. It selectively uses facts to misportray reality for the sake of a good story. The author fails to mentions areas where Google is innovating and Microsoft is playing catch up: mobile search, visual search, real-time search, social search, and others.

On valid point where I think Microsoft has done well is in it's vertical strategy as a means of differentiation. As the article says,

Microsoft has tried to attract people like Mr. Callan by excelling at answering frequently asked questions, like those related to travel, health, shopping, entertainment and local businesses. For example, Bing has flight search and prediction tools that reveal price fluctuations for certain routes, and advises customers whether to buy or wait. Bing Health uses data from sources like the Mayo Clinic and Healthwise...