Kumo/Bing details continue to surface

More details are emerging about how Microsoft intends to compete with Google through its new search engine, tentatively titled Kumo. There is also some more weight to the idea that the site may have a different name.

Kumo will take much of its technology from Powerset, a firm Microsoft bought out last year. Powerset specializes in semantic search technology: that is, the process of working out what a user means by a search query, rather than simply acting on the literal words they use.

PCWorld reports that the new Microsoft search tool will learn of a user’s interests (or let them select them as options) and tweak results accordingly. It gives the example of a user whom the computer knows is interested in surfing: when they search for “wax”, Kumo will favor results to do with polishing surfboards ahead of those about ear conditions or candles. (Of course, the more a search engine knows about your hobbies and interests, the better served it is to sell targeted advertising.)

That may not be the killer blow Microsoft needs to compete with Google, however. The site interviewed a search expert named Stephen Arnold who argues that merely offering more relevant results is not enough: “I can give you example after example of search systems that are better than Google right now but it doesn’t matter.” He put forward an increasingly common theory that the only way to take searches away from Google is to offer a feature which is not only totally new, but makes a substantial difference to the ease with which people can search.

Rumors that the new search tool will be known as Bing rather than Kumo have continued to grow with the news that Microsoft has registered a host of Web site addresses with the name for various domains around the world. However, that’s not necessarily of any major significance as a company the size of Microsoft could easily afford to snap up such domains pure on the off-chance of using them one day. And it still seems difficult to imagine Microsoft using a name for which it has already had a trademark application rejected.

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• New Microsoft search tool Kumo coming on June 2nd
• Kumo becomes the new Microsoft buzz word
• Kumo coming as early as next week
• Kumo gets major ad budget – and maybe new name
• Microsoft confirms Bing name and adds detail