I agree. I have started using Bing for a lot of research type searches instead of google. I use about 50/50 Google/Bing now on a daily basis.
I doubt that the “streaming” search will replace the general search. I think there will be at least 3 searches – General search, blog search and streaming search and the user picks what they are interested in.
The 3 types of searches have different users with different objectives… Once google realizes that and seperates them out they’ll have a good product again.
I notice an element of “streaming” in the general search now – I think that is a mistake. It brings items to the top that don’t much matter to people who are looking for answers to a research question or want to buy something.
On the other hand, let’s say you want to buy a computer online and you’ve found your model in the general search and the reviews are mixed. Now it makes sense to go to streaming search to look for the latest comments about it… as well as blog search to see what geeks say about it.
But to have all these results mixed into one search just makes it totally confusing.