Josh Constine:

While Google keeps cramming its search results pages full of tools and social content, today Bing confirmed with me the full roll out a redesigned search results page that completely clears the left sidebar, and replaces the tabbed header with a cleaner set of links. Bing Facebook integration is also more subtle now, instead of plastering names and faces beneath Liked results.

This more relaxing, dare I say zen, design gives Google a more claustrophobic and exhausting feel by comparison.

Bing now looks so much better. And smart.

Microsoft is going on the offensive. And they’re not just targeting Google Search, they’re targeting Gmail, Google Docs, and Chrome as well with their “Putting People First” ad campaign. 

Given Google’s stumbles, Microsoft’s timing is right. But these battles ultimately are ultimately still about the products themselves. It’s not enough to say you’re better, you have to actually be better to make users switch. And in the case of something like search, you have to be so much better that it’s noticeable beyond a doubt.

Despite what Microsoft may think and say, Bing isn’t there yet. And I’m not sure they’ll ever get by conventional means. But they do have a very real opportunity right now — not by getting better, but by Google getting worse. Which sounds absurd, but it’s happening.  

For their part, Google is attempting to counter these ads with their own ads. Which, unlike the Microsoft ads, are not a good idea. If you’re trying convince me that your privacy and data changes aren’t bad, the absolute last thing I’m going to believe is a paid advertisement.

Kudos to Facebook (with some help from Twitter and MySpace) for having the balls to do this. It’s a bookmarklet that replaces Google’s new “People and Pages” area, the hardcoded social search area, and the search completion drop-down, with organic results. 

In other words, it makes the new Google behave more like the old Google.

There has been a lot of back and forth in recent weeks over Google’s new Search+ functionality — about how “fair” it is, and whether or not it should lead to antitrust inquiries. But the bottom line is this:

Search+ makes Google worse. It replaces relevancy with Google’s own agenda to pump up Google+.

I say kudos to Facebook because while this isn’t an official app they created, they let their key product manager, Blake Ross, work on it and deploy it knowing full well that everyone would immediately tie it to Facebook. That in turn will put some heat back on Facebook, which itself is far from fully open with regard to data — and is gearing up to IPO. 

But again, the key issue here is that what Google is doing with Search+ is making Google worse. This bookmarklet illustrates that in a very effective way. 

John Battelle and Danny Sullivan have more on this, as do others. And be sure to watch the Focus On The User walk-through video, narrated by Ross himself. 

Big day for Microsoft. Spend another $10 billion or so and they may pass Lycos.

We’re actually watching a snake eat its own tail.

…As Google looks down from way above, laughing.

It’s not just that Microsoft is losing money online, it’s that they’re bleeding it. And it’s getting worse, not better. The company has lost $9 billion online since they started breaking out the numbers in 2007 — $2.5 billion of that was in the past year. 

And Bing has accounted for $5.5 billion of the total losses. 

And what is Microsoft spending all that money on? Stealing market share from Yahoo, not Google. Yahoo is their search partner. Google is their enemy.

So what is Microsoft’s plan to make money on Bing? Essentially: get more people to use it.

Why didn’t anyone else think of that?

Microsoft’s real problem here is that in order to beat Google in search, they can’t just be better — they have to be exponentially better to get people to switch. And I’m just not sure that’s possible.

Microsoft is fighting a battle they’ve already lost simply by not taking it seriously earlier.

Billions in loses later, Microsoft may be starting to understand this. They have to compete with Google by not competing with them. They have to do something totally different and something Google can’t possibly copy.

Only one possibility comes to mind: Facebook. 

They’ve been doing stuff with Facebook already thanks to their small investment in the social network. But they need to completely blow it out. Facebook search sucks. But it won’t suck forever. Eventually, they’ll do it themselves. And they’ll do it in a way that will compete with Google by being completely different. It will not be Bing.

Microsoft needs to hurry.