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Microsoft's new Bing search engine went live today, replacing both MSN.com and Live.com search (they redirect to the new site) and we took an early look at the new beta to see if it matches up with Microsoft's pre-launch hype.

Our earliest feelings are that Microsoft have really hit the spot this time - Bing.com looks just right and returns exactly the results you'd expect from a serious Google competitor.

First of all, they've taken the notion of Universal Search and then really added to the experience. Google searches always feel corporate clinical where the new Bing results pages look like they've been prepared by people for people.

And it's not just the easy-on-the-eye image intensive look of the whole thing - there's some really innovative new functionality going on under the hood.

Is the new Google Wave going to call time on Twitter just when that particular Web 2.0 property has become the app to have open on your desktop at all times? I think there's a strong possibility, but only if Google starts to make the much needed changes in its approach to new product marketing that will ensure future success. More on that in a minute.

Don't get me wrong though, I love Twitter as much as anyone, but I've really started to find the whole 140 character restriction thing a bind, even if that's pretty much the point of the exercise.

140 characters; about the same length as a search engine site meta description snippet. It's a great way of practising your Adwords and SEO skills, but it hardly amounts to a conversation, and that's the big problem. Twitter, and the deliberate string length limitation, are tailor made for the SMS/instant-messaging/text-speak-forum-comment mentality where a lot is said, most of it gossip and nothing in any particular detail.

Even those heavy Twitter users who aspire to marketing guru status tend to just post lifestyle comments of pretty limited interest mixed with direct links to their latest blog posts - hardly the cutting edge thinking you'd expect from them.

Overall, it's a pretty thin experience and one that I've quickly tired of - a bit like subsisting on a diet of nachos; tasty initially but you soon long for some real meat.

Enter Google Wave.