Thing 19 - When to Bing. When to Wolf. When to Google.

All,
Welcome to the 19th thing -
In the last couple of weeks,
Wolfram|Alpha
has come online, and Microsoft Live Search has morphed into
Bing
.
Bing?
Yes. Bing. No one seems to know why. I'll admit, Wolfram|Alpha isn't really a great name, either... but... Bing? Google it. OK. It took a a while for that phrase to take hold, but can you imagine using the phrase, "Bing it"? Time will tell, I suppose, though I've no memory of anyone ever saying "Yahoo it", either.
The question for the day is, when to use these three, and what kinds of things differentiate them? Google is a known, though as we've all seen in many of the recent postings of 21 Things, it's more than just the search function, more than just the maps. Google is becoming a complicated set of interconnected tools. Bing is a variant of the older Live Search tool, a site that got relatively little use and even less respect in a world composed of Yahoo and Google. Bing appears to be a bit different, and is actually a pretty good general purpose search engine. Pick out a couple of interesting search term variations and try them in both Bing and Google and see if the differences are very great. If your search is fairly complex, the odds are that they'll return pretty similar kinds of sites and pages.
If your search is very simple, you're likely to see a bit more diversity of results. This is generally thought to be the difference between the two search algorithms, and is actually to be expected. For the most part, the two are similar enough that you're likely to get results from either tool, though the Google Advanced interface is still my default search tool, and Bing doesn't yet appear to have an equivalent.
Alpha, on the other hand, is trying to do something pointedly different, and to me that makes it a good deal more interesting - while it does do some level of general web searching, it really is designed to be a "Computational Knowledge Engine". The main page of examples give such things as: beta distribution, European Union, and Archimedean Solids. Fascinating, right? Well, when you're looking for numerical information, sure - Alpha is a great place to look for population stats, currency information, statistical information of any sort. A quick search on North Central College will give you an indication of the way the designers of Alpha view the world [for an interesting test, input stephen wolfram into all three search engines, and compare the results].
These are three interesting options, and while it's always good to HAVE these options, if you're really curious to learn more about either Bing or Wolfram|Alpha ---- I suggest you Google it.
For now, at least.

jjs