From Finger to Bung

Want to know how my mind works? So does Congress, so perhaps you need to stand in line. I honestly have no idea myself, only that I can often find myself connecting dots with lines at the strangest times. Like yesterday while at my daughter’s soccer game.

As I sat there watching I started to think about the different ways people have gone about getting information on other people or even other users on a system. I recalled my UNIX days and the finger command, which was clearly a command named by a man for reasons I really don’t want to explain here. Well, I do, but I won’t. Ask me at PASS and I will explain in more detail.

Anyway, I also thought about how since those dark days of UNIX people now think of Google as a way to get information on others. So much so that you will hear the terms “I Googled you”, or “I Googled myself last night”. And believe me when I tell you that the last thing you want to hear from your boss is “I Googled you and the results were surprising.” Still, those phrases are clearly much better than the old school UNIX phrases, so we can consider that to be some progress.

And I sat there yesterday, thinking about Bing. So, now we have a word that has actual tense. I was reading a book to my children at breakfast today and inside the book they explain how to use the word ‘sing’ properly depending upon the time of the activity.

And that’s when it all came together for me.

If I am searching for someone, then I would say “Now I Bing.”

If I searched some time ago, then I would say “I Bang.”

If I have finished searching, then I would say “I have Bung.”

Clearly a step forward from “Googled”. Plus, there is a rumor that Bing is an acronym for “But It’s Not Google”, which is brilliant in my opinion. But let us go even one step forward from these simple examples. Let us consider how this term will most likely be used going forward.

Scenario One: You go looking for some information, and come across a particular blog. Months later you run into the person who runs that blog and you discuss the matter. They ask “how did you find me?” and you respond with “I went looking for [whatever] and a-Bing, a-Bang, a-Bung your blog came up on page one.”

Scenario Two: You are at a conference, sitting inside of a session being presented by someone who you want to find out more about. You turn to your buddy and say “Hey, can you Bang him real quick and let me know what you find out?” People sitting near you look uncomfortable, then get up and leave when your buddy responds with “I actually Banged him last night and not much came up.”

Scenario Three: You are in a staff meeting discussing how to use various SEO techniques and your boss asks you “How do we get the most Bang for our bucks?”

You get the idea, and no doubt the marketing folks at Microsoft are way ahead of me on this, I am sure commercials are already in the works.

UPDATE: Again, this is how my mind works. Right after this blog post went out I thought of two commercials that Microsoft should get started on right away.

Commercial #1: Get the B-52’s (most likely they are available anyway) singing in the background of an office, doing the part of “Love Shack” which gets modified as “Bing, Bing, Bing, on the web baby” while people do searches. Then when a good hit comes back you get the “BANG BAAAANNNNG” part. Pure gold, if you ask me.

Commercial #2: Get William Hung (definitely available) to sing “She Bangs” while a woman does some searches from her cube.

Someone needs to make this happen.