Marc Cohen & Marsha Collier

Hi all, since I’m just back from vacation I had to post a bit about Microsoft Bing, a highly intuitive search (decision) engine that just went public. I called into my show to give Marc the low down. I did a head to head comparision on a couple of searches and Bing won over Google both times.

Now, Microsoft Corp. announced a new search destination for travelers — Bing Travel — which will help us make smart travel decisions through a variety of innovative tools and features. Bing Travel combines many of the airfare and hotel tools from Microsoft’s 2008 acquisition of Farecast with rich news and editorial content from MSN Travel. Bing Travel is available for travelers today at http://www.bing.com/travel.

Microsoft research shows that 45 percent of people use a search engine to select a flight or hotel. Bing Travel provides new travel answers within the search experience. You can search on Bing for hotels in a given city with a search such as “Vegas hotels” which will get Bing Travel Instant Answers included directly in search results, featuring the Rate Indicator, which help you choose the right hotel.

Here’s a few of my favorite Bing Travel features:

• Price Predictor. Bing Travel uses Farecast technology to analyze more than 175 billion airfare observations and predict whether the price of a flight is going up or down. It offers a recommendation of “Buy Now” or “Wait,” including a confidence level and expected price increase or decrease over the next seven days.

• Rate Indicator. How do you know if the rate for a hotel is a deal or not? The Rate Indicator analyzes historical rate data from thousands of hotels to determine whether the current price is a good deal, or not a deal at all. You can view a city map with details for each hotel, color coded by Rate Indicator data.

• Comparison Flight & Hotel Search. Finding the right flight or hotel is made simple with tools that allow users to refine results: nonstop flights only, specific airlines, hotels within a mile of an address, and many more. After selecting the hotel or flight, Bing Travel makes booking directly with suppliers or agencies seamless.

• Fare Alerts. Most airfare price drops last less than 48 hours, so people need to be ready to jump when a fare falls. Fare Alerts will notify people if the fares for their trips drop, allowing them to catch lower fares.

• Original travel editorial content. They combine editorial content from MSN Travel and Farecast to create an in-house team of experts who write daily articles, features, slide shows and blog posts to inspire and educate travelers on destinations, travel news, tips and tricks. Bing Travel also licenses content from leading publications such as Travel + Leisure, Budget Travel Inc. and The Wall Street Journal.

See you on Saturday!
Marsha