I admittedly know very little about the whole Bing search engine. I've been using Google for years and I'm just fine with that. The only thing I really knew about Bing was that they had some interesting commercials. It seemed that the one thing they were particularly good at was their marketing. Which has now led to one of their biggest mistakes ever.
In the wake of the recent horrific 8.9 earthquake in Japan Saturday, Bing tweeted the following: “How can you #SupportJapan — http://binged.it/fEh7iT. For every retweet, bing will give $1 to Japan quake victims, up to $100K.”
I didn't catch this when this initially made the Twitter rounds on Twitter. I am a regular there, but I wasn't on it at all the entire day. Too busy spending time with my fam that was visiting. I wasn't even paying attention to the few Twitter updates that come thru to my phone as notifications or I may have seen the uproar over the whole thing. Fortunately I got my man E who hit me up with a text to tell me about it.
It's obvious to see why everyone was so upset about the stupid move on Bing's part. What could have possessed them to think that using a tragedy like that would be a good idea for a marketing opportunity? That's the first thing. I mean if they were genuinely concerned with the victims there then they would just donate the money on their own instead of trying to find a way to also get themselves some business in the process.
Then there is the issue with the amount of money. Not only are they trying to capitalize on the misfortune of others but they're doing it for only $100,000. Yes, that's a lot of money to the average schmoe like me. However, to a place that has just suffered that type of devastation it's not even a drop in the bucket. It doesn't even matter that Japan is a rich country. It's about principalities.
What really sucks about this is the end result. You know the old saying about there's no such thing as bad publicity? I hate to say it but it definitely applies here. We can get ticked all we want about how Bing should be ashamed of their actions but look what happens int he process. Here we are talking about them. That's still publicity for them anyway. Probably more than they've gotten in quite a while.
All I know is I don't care how good a search engine Bing supposedly is. I'm a creature of habit. Google has always been alright with me so I'm going to keep sticking by them. Even if I had the slightest inclination to switch to using Bing before they have now officially squashed that urge with their latest action. I hope that one day their office is decimated by some disaster (with no one inside the building, of course). Then I'll offer to send them a dollar to help out with their disaster fund. Just as long as they give my website a shoutout.
