By the way, I would totally use Bing if it looked like this (click to enlarge):

What’s next? Wolframalpha, and now Bing.

Maybe it’s the marketing, the press, or the public opinion. But Bing and Wolframalpha have not escaped the often redundant “Google killer?”, “next Google?” questions.

In this case, I think the crucial element missing to the potential success of these new search engines is to explicitly position themselves away from Google – that is radically changing the visual perspective of the consumer away from the traditional “search” interface. What I mean is, rebranding beyond just changing a name, or changing the engine technology. We still type a query, and get a result, right? As long as Google continues to deliver in this way without any overwhelming problems, Google will be fine.

An aside: The “search box” in and of itself is now the unofficial trademark of the search engine, and Google is the owner in that field. Maybe it’s a time for a change? How about a search engine that searches for me before I know I need to search?

At the end of the day, there isn’t a large enough, ground breaking value proposition that Bing and Wolframalpha have provided that will make me switch away from Google or to even use them on a daily basis. What Wolframalpha has done that Bing has not, however, is to distinguish itself as a “computational” search engine. This indicates that it is meant for a specific purpose, and as we all know, even with the massive hoards of money available to Microsoft’s disposal, there is no way to create another catch-all search solution that will be adopted en masse without something fundamentally different.

I like “decision engine”. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a good start. Microsoft just seems hesitant to move radically in a different direction. They had Live Search. They had MSN search. They’ve rebranded their search services for the nth time. It’s time that they truly rebranded: it’s time that they rebranded beyond the logo.

Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean Twitter is being reported to the police or anything. But I am this close.

I’ve been harassed all day by Twitter’s SMS notifications service, receiving around 2,500 text messages since 7:00am. First thing I tried to do was text “STOP”, and “QUIT” to silence the alerts. Tried “OFF”. To no avail. I am trying now (7+ hours later) and the messages still keep on rolling in AFTER the confirmation message from Twitter.

I believe that in the past few days Twitter has successfully renegotiated with Rogers Wireless in Canada, and SMS notifications have been turned back on after being silenced for almost a year. For some reason, all attempts by me to stop these notifications have not worked. There are also no other accounts linked to my phone number other than “brian_wong”.

The worst part? When I try to turn notifications off in the “devices” tab in my settings page, the “page does not exist”. Same thing goes with resetting the entire thing.

I’ve posted an official support ticket almost 7 hours ago, and I have gotten no response. My phone has also become unusable in the process. I’ve been inundated with hundreds of texts per hour and notifications get in the way of me doing anything.

I don’t know what to feel. I feel paralyzed, I can’t answer phone calls because the notifications get in the way and ultimately make it impossible for me to hang up (I rely on the other person to hang up). I need to clear out my text messages once in a while to make sure that my memory doesn’t get destroyed by thousands of text messages coming in.

I don’t know what to do. Twitter, please help.

Update (May 7th, 2009): Called Rogers to turn off my text messages until midnight. Text messages were then re-enabled. Assault continued. I’ve found a way to stop the text messages – I need to “silence” the alerts during the set period of time in the devices tab. This doesn’t solve the problem if it’s set from midnight to midnight, however. There needs to be at least 1 hour of active time for it to work. Still no reply on Twitter’s support request.

Thanks to Twitter, consumers are now posting messages about what they want, what they’re craving, where they are going, what they do, who they’re going to see, what events they’re attending – and more. The list goes on – and as a result, marketers are bathing in a sea of consumer data glory.

The fact is, consumers are now helping target and segment themselves. The next step is to create the tools to help expedite and aggregate this process. With Twitter search tools becoming more and more advanced, it’s only a matter of time.

With Earth Day just around the corner, the environment is now on everybody’s minds. Including the corporate minds.

I have a challenge: I challenge you, the corporations, to do something for the environment this year in the spirit of Earth Day without telling anyone about it. That’s right, no commercials, no press releases, no newspaper ads, nothing.

Recognition comes when recognition is deserved. Telling people about what your doing is fundamentally less profound than telling people what’s been done.

This sends an underlying message about corporate social responsibility. We, as consumers, are now desensitized to “green” messages. We will not buy your product more just because you’ve told us you’re doing green things.

We will, however, buy your product if doing so makes a meaningful, positive impact onto the environment. Show us the trees you claim to plant. Show us the tons and tons of carbon emissions you have already eliminated, and also tell us how much money you’ve made off of that. That means you Apple: using less packaging has made you save money on packaging. I want to know how much you’ve saved. I also want to know how much of the environment you’ve saved as well. It’s time to take a different stance. Corporations deserve the money they’ve saved by being truly green. The message and the means aren’t all we’re after: it’s the ends as well.