Why is Bing Called Bing?

Bing is a strange word.

When he was a boy, my father in law's favourite soft drink was called "Bing". It was made by the Silver Spring Company in Folkestone. You can still buy it today in Kent; it's a dark orange colour and tastes like cherryade.

And then of course there's the legendary Bing Crosby. As a fan of vintage popular music, I've always been a big fan. I especially love his late twenties and early thirties stuff. Also his forties period with Bob Hope.

This week Microsoft launched it's long awaited internet serach engine. It's been code-named Kumo, but when it went live it was under the name "Bing".

Bing, according to Microsoft is, "A new Decision Engine and consumer brand, providing customers with a first step in moving beyond search to help make faster, more informed decisions".

The web has been alive with threads and posts discussing whether Bing will be the next Google, will Bing replace Google etc etc. But it's harder to find out why Microsoft chose the name Bing.

So, time to put Bing to the test I thought! I asked it "Why is the Bing search engine called Bing?" And lo; up comes John Battelle's search engine blog.

In it he quote's Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer. "It's short, it works globally, we could get the URLs and it makes for a good brand".

That's it then. Sadly nothing to do with fizzy drinks or crooners.