Microsoft reportedly is deciding how to rebrand its Bing "decision engine" as the search engine gains US share at Yahoo's expense, but hasn't shaken Google's search grip.
Its initial "Decision Engine" advertisements have evolved into "Bing and Decide," and Microsoft is performing a "deep-dive" to consider how to reposition the Bing brand, Ad Age says.
Speaking of decisions, in the more than three years since Microsoft acquired Farecast to create it, Bing Travel has pretty much lost its identity and gotten swallowed up in the whole Bing thing.
When Microsoft launched Bing in 2009, Travel was a featured link on the Bing homepage.
Bing's homepage today has a Travel link at the very top of the page, although it was much more prominent when Bing launched.
These days Bing Travel doesn't show up in Experian Hitwise Top 10 lists of US travel sites.
Bing Travel -- or should one say Bing -- handed over flight search duties to Kayak in March and it wouldn't surprising to see Kayak handling Bing's hotel search sometime soon.
In its day, Farecast was known for its data-mining innovation in the form of its "Know When to Buy" flight and hotel price predictions.
They still exist, but the emphasis on new features and functionality starts with the broader Bing.
Today at Microsoft, any online innovations, such as autosuggest flight prices or visual search for destinations, trickles down from Bing to Bing Travel, with the latter seeming to be almost an after-thought.
If you want to contact the leader of Bing Travel, then good luck in finding him or her because the duties are likely split up among several Microsoft executives.
Bing Travel's absorption into Bing/Microsoft isn't an uncommon tale -- lots of brands have their issues when swallowed up by big companies.
It wasn't too long ago when you could hear people saying that Google would want to buy ITA Software or a big online travel agency because Google was concerned about Microsoft's travel inroads with Farecast.
You don't see that sentiment being expressed too often these days.