Five Years Later, Ex-Farecast Founder Asks “What Is Bing Doing?”

Oren Etzioni, the founder of Farecast who sold it to Microsoft in 2008, says he’s “disappointed” with Bing’s development and “expected more” from Microsoft’s search engine.

As Geekwire reports, Etzioni made his comments to an audience last night at a Startup Grind event in Seattle.

“What is Bing doing, period? So many smart people, so many resources. What have they rolled out that makes a difference?”

Geekwire says he backtracked a bit in an interview afterwards:

“It’s fair to say that I would have expected more [from Bing] during the past few years. I am disappointed with, given how many smart people are there, how little has come out and I’m hoping that [with] the new re-org [it] will make a difference.”

Etzioni, who’s now a computer science professor at the University of Washington, added that he thinks Microsoft/Bing needs “faster processes” for pushing out new products and services. (Indeed, as any Search Engine Land reader would recognize, Google is far more active in launching new search-related products and tools.)

Still, Bing continues to slowly gain market share. According to the latest comScore figures, Bing hit an all-time high with 17.9 percent of core U.S. searches in June 2013. But that’s still only about one-quarter of Google’s core search share.

Microsoft has taken Etzioni’s Farecast service and turned it into what is now Bing Travel.