"For that to work people would have to change the way they think about microsoft as well"
I honestly don't really care that Bing is part of Microsoft - if they consistently started finding noticeably "better" search results than Google I'd stop using Google in exactly the same way that I stopped using AltaVista/HotBot/etc.
There were loads of search engines around when Google started - as far as I recall people started using them because their search results were dramatically better than what you'd get from other sites. Simple as that.
Google's results were dramatically better, but I'm not sure that was the biggest reason most people were switching. I remember it was also out-of-control blazing fast. No more waits at all. Performing a single query would change the expression on most people's faces.
The user experience changed from "tell us what you want, and we'll go out and see what we can find" to "we have everything right here, just let us know what you are looking for."
That is what I remember people caring about too. And the result page bragged about fast it was. They did well on a metric, and then drew your attention to just how darn well right as you were primed to be impressed.
Being dramatically better than google is a high hurdle. It's tough for competitors but google pretty much did an end-run around the search problem and to be just like google is not good enough a reason to switch.
Now if someone would do to google what google did to altavista that would move the needle on many fronts.
I suspect DDG is not it, but I'm not saying it is not possible.
The change will not come from being better than Google at their own game (unless they start being incompetent), but rather from winning a different game that Google didn't pay attention to in time.
That's how Facebook happened.
In the mobile search space, pay attention to DoAT.com - it's mobile search done right, unlike google (or anyone else). If they gain enough traction, they can dethrone google eventually. Or it could just be a passing fad.
It's rare to win an established game, like Google did with search (or Microsoft did 20 years ago with word processing and spreadsheets). It's much more common to win at a new game that is being overlooked by the giants. (Some people say the Microsoft takeover of the office space is "a different game" because no one took "office suites" seriously except them; However, Word really was better than WordPerfect and friends at the time; and Excel really was better than 1-2-3, and people were switching one-package-at-a-time. So I think this should be considered winning an established game)
"Being dramatically better than google is a high hurdle."
Everyone likes to say that...but really, how do you know? By definition, disruption comes when you don't expect it. When Google came along, people didn't know that search could be made better. Likewise, today, people don't see what they're not getting with Google...they just know that Google's results cause about the same level of satisfaction as they always have.
The search engine that gets a toehold against Google is going to do something completely different, and re-define the search game for all of the players. It's not going to be a head-to-head competition on the same playing field.
You are right, but in order to do this, Bing would have to be DRAMATICALLY better than Google's. This will be tough to do - Google has a large vested interest in making sure that their results are as good as it gets.
I feel like Bing would have better success breaking out into new spaces to push its search engine.
Apparently there is a study around that people actually prefer Bing's results to Google's if you swap the layout (i.e. show Bing's results on a Google page and vice versa). That may just show that Google has the better brand, but Bing's search results are apparently not that bad.
(I don't use Bing and have no conceivable stake in this fight.)
Your "source" is that blog post from the other day by the guy who worked on Bing three years ago, no? His "source" was an "internal study" that he provided no links to. Just sayin'.
I must honestly say that I forgot where I got this from, which is not a good thing. Thanks for pointing this out.
That said,
http://mashable.com/2009/06/07/blindsearch/ (apparently based on http://delicategeniusblog.com/?p=839) suggests that in a blind three-way test in 2009 both Yahoo's and Bing's results got picked as the best regularly (Google gets 41%, which is a substantial but not overwhelming advantage.) Note that that guy works for Microsoft, too.
I honestly don't really care that Bing is part of Microsoft - if they consistently started finding noticeably "better" search results than Google I'd stop using Google in exactly the same way that I stopped using AltaVista/HotBot/etc.
YMMV.