Bing Watch: NYT Praise, Search Share, Hotmail Tie-In, 36-Hour Outage

– 36-Hour Outage: Fourth of July week-end started with a downer for Microsoft’s revamped search engine when one of Bing’s much-hyped “decision categories” — Travel — went offline for 36 hours because of a fire at a Seattle data center. Via TechFlash.

– More praise: Just over a month after the WSJ featured its own adoring review of Bing, the NYT chimed in with its own. David Pogue’s bottom line: “If you value your time, you should give Bing a fling.”

– Mixed numbers: Microsoft’s share of the search market dropped in June, compared to May. But Hitwise said that Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) had nevertheless increased its share of the search market each week during the month.

– Google’s take: Google (NSDQ: GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt says there hasn’t been much impact on Google’s market share since Bing’s launch. Via Bloomberg News.

– Bing finds a friend in Hotmail: Microsoft’s Hotmail might no longer be a sexy brand name — but it remains the most popular e-mail system in the world, according to comScore (NSDQ: SCOR). And from within Hotmail, users will now be able to use Bing to find maps, movie times, or other content to add to messages. More details on the Hotmail blog.