It's a fitting image given Microsoft's desire to lift search off what it considers the ground level. In a speech last week at the unveiling of Bing, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer called current search one-dimensional and said Bing will help people "find information quickly and use the information they've found to accomplish tasks."

The software giant plans to do this by categorizing results according to best match and not popularity, and also by pulling related searches and information that's buried in a site onto the results page. Microsoft vows to display more information on the page in a more organized way than the competition (i.e. Google).

But as everyone knows, Google is a dominant force in search, with a market share of 64 percent, according to .

If Microsoft has any chance of reducing Google's reign it will be through Bing's organization of information and images on the results pages and by helping people find local restaurants, book flights, or find treatments for the flu better than Google.

Also, aggressive marketing will help. Microsoft plans to invest close to $100 million in an advertising campaign for Bing.