In my earlier write up about Bing, I just used what was presented to me when I launched Bing. What I didn’t notice was that it automatically determined that I was in Canada and displayed the Canadian version of Bing. I didn’t expect that the US version would be any different – but I was wrong. After changing my location to US – English, I saw a similar, yet different Bing.
On the home page, Bing shows Travel and Shopping, which are not displayed on the Canadian version. When I search in the shopping section, you are presented with options down the left hand side – much the same way as images or video’s works. These allow you to filter your search even further. For Shopping, the options are Show, Category, Brand, and Price.
Under the Travel section, you enter your travel information (like departure and arrival locations and dates) and Bing will search various sites to find you the best possible price for your travel or hotel stay. And once again, down the left side are a number of options to allow you to filter the results. You can select Non-Stop, Times, Airlines, and Price Ranges.
When I was using the Canadian site, I noticed that the News page was blank by default, but worked when searching. On the US site, the News page is populated with current news stories. As you would expect, the left side allows you to filter the news based on categories. I also noticed that the news page is web-slices aware. When you hover over a story, The web-slice icon appears allowing you to add this to your collection.
And finally, something that I picked up via Twitter (Thanks Berry!) and I didn’t notice this on the Canadian version either – There’s some pretty cool inline searching that Bing allows you to do. If you Bing for UPS, FedEx, Google, or the like, you are presented with an inline search box allowing you to track parcels or locate things without having to click through to the site first. Pretty slick stuff!
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