Despite not officially being launched until the 3rd June, Bing was out in the open at the start of the month and within hours its flaws and shortcomings were being found and shared across the web.

At the time of writing the latest issue is the video search that provides previews right on the page. This sounds great, and indeed it is until the web user’s inevitable hunt for sex related material offers up pornographic video without having to visit a website that would otherwise be blocked by firewalls and child security.

For those of you that will no doubt want to try it out (for educational reasons, of course) it’s just a matter of changing the results filter as below:

Or clicking here to run a video search on “sex” (adult content)

Moving switfly on…

So aside from some teething problems, how does Bing stand up as a search engine; does it have anything that can compete with the behemoth that is Google?

From an advertisers point of view only two things are really going to matter; volume and the advertising interface – both of which are notoriously bad. There’s no doubt the buzz will swell volumes and I can’t see how it won’t grow Microsoft’s market share, the question is by how much. I like a flutter now and again so I’m putting my money on 3-5% in the first six months. How about you?

From a users point of view; I like it. The new features aren’t intrusive to the browsing experience yet when needed offer great assistance in finding the information you’re after. I don’t think it’ll turn new users away, I’m just not convinced the new features are a big enough incentive to switch from Google.

I don’t think the US Promo TV advert is going to help with that either. bing!