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Microsoft Pri0

Welcome to Microsoft Pri0: That's Microspeak for top priority, and that's the news and observations you'll find here from Seattle Times technology reporter Sharon Chan.

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June 4, 2009 at 6:02 PM

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More Microsoft TV ads promoting its search engine Bing (update on an oops)

Posted by Sharon Chan

Here is the next round of TV commercials Microsoft is airing to make some headway in online search. The ads all criticize Google without actually naming the search leader, claiming that using Google's search engine results in an overload of results that don't get you the answer you want.

On a side note, our reliable Seattle Times copy desk caught an error in one of the ads, which I had quoted in a story, saying "The Breakfast Club" came out in 1986. According to all the searches our copy editors did, the film came out in 1985. (A search for "breakfast club release date" on Wolfram Alpha, Google and Bing all point to 1985.) I've called Microsoft to see if its plans to change the ad and it said they will get back to me.

Update Friday 12:36 p.m.: Microsoft says they are going to change the ad so it reflects the correct year, and highlighted that Bing returns the correct date in its search results.

Here is the ad that cites "The Breakfast Club":

And two other ads, which we have not fact-checked:


Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company

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Comments (8)
First, the author writes: "...our reliable Seattle Times copy desk caught an error in one of the ads..." Then, in THE SAME ARTICLE...  Posted on June 5, 2009 at 8:39 PM by tarnishedRecord. Jump to comment
I was expecting an article discussing a new search engine. What I got instead was two paragraphs nitpicking a typo in one of the ads. Would that...  Posted on June 5, 2009 at 4:13 PM by quincompoix. Jump to comment
Bing is awesome. The ads are hilarious! By the way - before you speak about the quality of Microsoft research, make sure your editors PROOF READ...  Posted on June 5, 2009 at 8:33 PM by rolexx. Jump to comment

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