On Thursday Microsoft unveiled Bing, its new search engine thingie. They're hoping that before long you'll forget how to "Google it" and will instead "Bing it." Unfortunately we think the name reminds us mostly of Sopranos strippers and the guy who knocked up Elizabeth Hurley. Microsoft FAIL!

Bill Gates and Microsoft have been desperately trying to come up with some way to challenge Google in search and Bing is their latest sure to go down in flames attempt. It's basically revamped version of Live Search, which was a revamped version of MSN Search, and both were epic failures in just about every possible way. But this time they're banking that they can brainwash the masses into thinking they're cooler than Google with their clever little name.

Microsoft's marketing gurus hope that Bing will evoke neither a type of cherry nor a strip club on "The Sopranos" but rather a sound - the ringing of a bell that signals the "aha" moment when a search leads to an answer.

The name is meant to conjure "the sound of found" as Bing helps people with complex tasks like shopping for a camera, said Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of Microsoft's online audience business group.

And if Bing turns into a verb like, say, Xerox, TiVo or, well, Google, that would be nice too. Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, said Thursday that he liked Bing's potential to "verb up." Plus, he said, "it works globally, and doesn't have negative, unusual connotations."

But some outsiders think that the name Bing, well, sucks.

Peter Sealey, a former chief marketing officer at the Coca-Cola Company, said Microsoft should have picked a name that more directly connotes search.

"Bing has no equity; it signals nothing," Mr. Sealey said. "It is going to be an enormous expense to create an image for this thing called Bing."

Meanwhile, some tech people were already noting that Bing is also an unfortunate acronym: "But It's Not Google."

HA! How could they have not noticed that? And yeah, we're still all grossed out by the Bing connection to Sopranos strippers and Elizabeth Hurley's knocker-upper. Bing just screams social disease in our minds. And now this guy is probably going to sue them! You have failed AGAIN Microsoft.

Microsoft's Search For A Name Ends With a Bing [New York Times]