Heard of Bing? It’s a new search engine by Microsoft that’s been getting a ton of attention since its recent launch, likely thanks to a huge marketing budget.

Author Seth Godin is skeptical. He pointed out that Bing is trying to be the next Google, and the problem is that the next Google is Google. “Google is not seen as broken by many people, and a hundred million dollars trying to persuade us that it is, is money poorly spent,” writes Godin in a recent blog post. “In times of change, the rule is this: Don’t try to be the ‘next’. Instead, try to be the other, the changer, the new.”

Satirical newspaper The Onion even commented on Bing — they did an American Voices feature about it, where three (fake) people were asked what they thought about Bing. “Search engines are for lazy computer users who don’t have the fortitude to type random URLs until they find what they’re looking for,” was one answer. Another was, “Bing? Interesting. I’ll have to Google that when I get home.” Great stuff.

It’s a huge risk to challenge Google, a search engine so big and powerful and a part of our everyday lives that we’ve adopted it as a synonym for “search.” I need to find a dry cleaner near my house. I’ll just Google it. So why try to compete with Google? Well, why not? Competition is a good thing. Plus, Google didn’t achieve overnight success.

Rob Pegoraro of The Washington Post wrote about the good and bad aspects of Bing in an article titled “With Bing, Microsoft Finds Some Good Web Search Ideas“:

Bing suffers from some handicaps, starting with one whose initials happen to spell out: “But It’s Not Google.” Yet it works fairly well as a general-purpose search engine, outperforms competitors in a couple of areas and makes a major contribution to mobile Web searching. There’s something to see here, and it’s not just the hype that $100 million or so of marketing can buy.

Pegoraro also reported that when searching for generic terms, Bing can seem “confused.” But when searching for a well-known topic, “Bing can present more relevant details than Google,” he says, using the example of a search for “Washington Nationals” that turned up the team schedule for the week, links to ballpark info and tickets, and the team’s record and standings. Google results, on the other hand, “offered little more than the score of the Nats’ last game.”

Today reports came out that after just a week, Bing has become the number-two most used search, beating out Yahoo. Google holds a 71% market share, and Bing now holds a 16% share. BNET warns that this could be due to the hype and marketing around the site launch, so we could see the traffic go down pretty soon if users go back to the search engine they were previously using. If traffic holds, though, that means Google potentially has a serious competitor.

Some experts say that whatever new, cool feature Bing implements, Google will come right back with something better. If that’s true, we could possibly have two search engines that are constantly one-upping each other and improving. Even if Bing winds up failing at “beating” Google, it’s a win for everyone if we’ll be getting better results for what we’re looking for.

Regardless, it’ll be interesting to watch what happens in the next few weeks.

Last week, MAGNA, Mediabrands’ global media forecasting and investment strategy unit, put out a social media “forecast.” After exploring the question “What IS social media?”, they delivered their definition by socializing in public as well as on the Wikipedia page for Social Media. They also posted a Facebook note with the information.

So why deliver the information this way? Advantages of social media, they said, were that “anyone can add to the conversation,” while its limitations are that “most people still consume most social media content in a passive manner — which begs the question of whether or not our social media content was in fact social in nature, or more akin to traditional media.”

The other definitions of social media MAGNA collected were quite interesting. “The facilitation of word of mouth with technology,” “trackable conversational content about brands, products or anything,” “consumer generated content that influences perceptions” — these are just a few, but it’s easy to see a theme with these specific examples.

What MAGNA deemed their preferred definition is what they wound up adding to the Wikipedia page on Social Media: “a set of technologies, tools and platforms facilitating the discovery, participation and sharing of content.” They make a point to say at the end of their forecast that the definition of social media will change as the industry evolves, and they’re still refining their own definition of it.

If you want to add your thoughts to MAGNA’s forecast, they welcome input at their Facebook discussion.