Slashdot Mirror
Why Microsoft Wants to Buy Google
xihr writes "Harry Fletcher writes in The Inquirer about an obvious discrepancy between searches for "linux windows" on Google and MSN; the former comes up with almost 9 million hits, but the latter only comes up with -- wait for it -- 16. The author then speculates on Microsoft's ulterior motives for their attempted (and failed) purchase of Google."
Even funnier is a search for 'Linux' on MSN. Amazon, eBay, and two Microsoft sites, one of them about 'Alternatives to Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP', come up before Linux.org does. According to MSN there are only 365 sites about Linux on the Web. Google says there are 92,000,000.
Biased? Microsoft? Never!
- Wine Development HQ
- Linux Online
- freshmeat.net
- WinLinux 2003
- Red Hat
- Linux.com
- XChat
- NeTraverse
- Opera Software
- Cygwin
- Microsoft Linux
- Operating System Sucks-Rules-O-Meter
- Linux + Windows 95 mini-HOWTO
- Download Opera
The list looks like a pretty good list of top sites.The fact that MSN Search is willing to whore their entire first page of search results to the top bidder is another matter altogether. It makes their search hard to use, it confuses people, it is dihonest, and I'm sure glad that there are other alternatives. They get people to use MSN search because it is the default search engine for the Internet Explorer browser. Many people use it becasue they don't know about the alternatives. Sound like their other anti-competative behavior?
Microsoft just wants to correct them. Linux doesn't exist, darn it.
Maybe its because Microsoft's internet search sucks, and they want to assimilate some new search tools.
They wont understand either, they will take what they see first as 'results' and move on with that. By controlling the first 10% of what the average consumer sees, they can manipulate consumer opinion and knoledge. Sure *we* can see past this and get facts, but *we* dont line their pockets either...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
For a while, I've been looking at alternative search engines. I still use Google as my primary engine, but I hate having such a strong reliance on a single tool. Any tool I don't own and keep locally could go away at any point or change and become useless to me.
The closest thing to Google I've found to date is AllTheWeb.com. AllTheWeb started out as an experimental second site by Lycos, with the apparent goal of being a Google clone. The thing matured quickly, being an objective and statistics-driven search site, unlike Lycos' own site where sites buy placement. AllTheWeb was later purchased from Lycos by Overture, even more famous for paid placement and (IMHO) slimy advertising tactics. But for the six months or so since they made the purchase, they seem to have left it alone. They may well also be trying to clone Google completely. And if Google suddenly sours as a search tool, this may well finally pay off big for them.
Give AllTheWeb a try. I'm not petitioning anyone to switch over and start using ATW as their only engine, but make sure you know that alternative is there and - more importantly - make sure Google's new owners know that you're aware of an alternative. It just may be enough to keep them honest.
Because if they did that they would create market doubt and user doubt on the verracity of google. They are whatthey are now not because people like the "google" word but because they offer the most correct result up to now, without a vendor/advertising bias. Should they switch to the same result than MSN the outcry would be enormous and rightfully the monopoly comision could again look at such practice of supressing concurrence by borderline legal means.
In the first case (market/user doubt) a new search engine would quickly birth. Whether he could replace google is a matter but i forsee million of geek switching imemdiatly to the new search engine.
In the second case in the US and in EU a lot of outcry on unfair competition would rise, and that is quite not what they need at them moment especially with the EU inquiries. Even more I suspect if they shunt down the link then the Eu would quickly raise a brow even quicker than with the media player.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I went to MSN.com because that sounded crazy. Not only was it crazy but it was a lie. When I went to search.msn.com I typed linux windows and got many, many links to linux sites. This is just false and slashdot ought to be more responsible.
And yet, channels on Microsoft's "Active Desktop" didn't last long. Most people disabled it.
As you pointed out, you must go to the NEXT PAGE, which is unacceptable. If someone just looks at the first page, they only get the 16 'sponsered' results of LINUX->MS migration techiniques and biased spec sheets.
always clear why Microsoft wanted Google
"he who controls the spice controls the universe"
or i guess in this case
he who controls the search controls the product placement
In this day and time no one would argue that information equals power. and while microsoft may be filtering results that a user may acquire, its all marketing. Microsoft has tried to bust into the search engine business and failed. Search engines are powerful portals to a world we dont know anything about. the simple truth is if they control the most popular search engine then they have an incredibly powerful marketing tool. And while granted there biggest treat is Linux. there are other treats out there and if they control ones access to that information then they have power.
and when people try to cry foul, well its not microsofts fault you use their website. Its hard to make antitrust case against them when no one forces you to use that search engine.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
Search google and msn for "linux advantages"
I got 450k hits on msn and only 350k hits from google.
The first page on msn were positive articles... not links to MS sites saying there were none.
Clearly someone at MSN has screwed up!
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
For example... Beer.
Google versus MSN
Or how about... trucks?
Google versus MSN
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Bill!! Save us! We actually have weirdos who wade through 9 million hits! Save us, please! 16 is all we need!
but enter "linux on windows" and you receive over 9 million results. Hmmm.....
When I put an incomplete term into the address bar of Windows Explorer on my Winxp workstation, I am often redirected to the MSN search page.
Apparently, IE isn't the only MS program that defaults to using MSN search.
Just tested it on win2k, not only did I get MSN Search, I even get a popup!
Where's my tinfoil hat?!?
Just for fun, I tried a few other searches. In order of relevance:
linux windows - 16 results
microsoft is a fundamentally evil monopolist - 115 results
windows - 2373 results
microsoft ate my balls - 6207 results
so we can all see where their heads are at...
What a strange bird is the pelican, his beak can hold more than his belly can.
THis is only a problem for people who don't think to click the Next button... oh wait, that's 90% of everyone who uses the internet.
In other words, even though they acknowledge the exisence of these sites, they hide them, and that's bad. We wouldn't be affected by this, just pissed, but most people will only see that page. This Is Bad.
Anyone try that with "DRM bad"? I think that that's something else to look out for...
"73% of quotes on the Internet are made up" -Ben Franklin
Could Microsoft's desire to buy Google have to do with Google actually making a profit? Seriously, Fletcher's claims of Microsoft trying to censor web content is preposterous. MSN search results are "limited" is because sites that want to be "found" on MSN have to pay. No one has to pay to be on Google. Google makes money because advertisers know that's the first place anyone will go to find anything on anything. With that kind of audience, Google can ask a lot for page space.
I think you all need to take a step back and look at the big picture. It isn't about censorship. It's about profit, pure and simple. Would you take over a competitor that was failing and had absolutely no potential to turn itself around?
GOBACK.
Searched the web for Linux.
Did you mean: Windows
Searched the web for Free Software.
Did you mean: Capitalism
Searched the web for speaker bracelets
Did you mean: Microsoft Windows
Searched the web for candle trucks
Did you mean: Microsoft Windows
...And, it returns a pop-under for your trouble. So, I get sponsered links, and then a pop under, and then another click, and I can get the results I was looking for.
Wow, the mind boggles.
Both are mature companies but the way Microsoft sometimes unnecesarily acts can be harmful for its own image (sacking a guy, FUD war on Linux, Java support endless...), also the monopolistic overtures all the time; not that their products are useless, I use their OS (RH 8.0 too) and all other features(I couldnt get my Linuxant modem to work on Linux till now). Google is seen as a more ethical and geeky, community and programmer friendly company (topcoder contests and google lab, blogger etc). But I doubt they will be able to buy Gogle though they(along with IBM) are the company with max hard cash currently ... And MSN search is hardly used(unless the forced redirections from IE) Google will stay strong on that search engine front !
Or how about Evil Empire!
Google vs MSN
"Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert
However, It also points out the misleading nature of the MSN website, which may very well just be flaw in the MSN setup (or poor design). I tried 'Highlander', the first number of 'search results' was pretty small. However, upon reaching the end of the 'first' list (about 55 links), there was another that said about 359,000. I'm sure there is not a conspiracy against Immortals or people living in the various Hihlands around the world.
Searched from MSN (listed by number of results):
- Results 1-15 of about 1136552 containing "freebsd"
- Results 1-15 of about 341343 containing "openbsd"
- Results 1-15 of about 200091 containing "ipsec"
- Results 1-15 of about 96796 containing "postgres"
- Results 1-15 of about 9641 containing "plan9"
- Results 1-15 of about 408 containing "OS/2"
- Results 1-15 of about 365 containing "linux"
- Results 1-15 of about 113 containing "apache"
- Results 1-15 of about 76 containing "php"
- Results 1-15 of about 40 containing "mysql"
Clearly, those platforms that MS does not like are treated differently than less popular (and less threatening?) technologies. Or maybe Plan9 is finaly picking up steam.Google's best asset is the trust that people have in them to return useful unbiased results.
The moment that trust is lost, another search engine will gladly step forward to fill the void.
It would be a sad day indeed to see Google fall to Microsoft or other greedy commercial interests, but it would not be the end of the world.
Does anyone here think that Microsoft, just maybe, Wanted Google because it works better?
Does Everything MS do have to have some Ulterior "Lets do X to screw Linux today!" Motive behind it?
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
then what does it say about the quality of THIS search
Let Microsoft buy Google if they want, people are starting to realise it's limitations and biases anyway. I think there should be a healthy turnover of search engines to keep things fresh. How about grub.org? Early days but looking promising. Distributed crawling of the web! Even better, someone with more knowledge than myself set up a non-profit, not affiliated with 'the global leader in paid search inclusion' project to do the same thing in our computer's spare time.
"This is crazy, you realise we could all go to jail for this?" - my manager, somewhere I used to work.
Just as a test I did a search for something obscure: rutabaga windows. I got the following:
Results 1-15 of about 738 containing "rutabaga windows"
{Results follow}
Doing the same with "linux windows" I get:
Results 1-15 of about 16 containing "linux windows"
{Results follow}
It's basically saying "There may be another page to look at, but hey, it's only one item so why bother? Maybe you should search for a nice Microsoft product instead." Only if you click the "next" button do you get:
Results 16-30 of about 8898833 containing "linux windows"
Does Microsoft have more than 16 results for "linux windows?" Absolutely. Do they lie on the first page of the search? The answer to that is yes as well, unless you really believe 8,898,833 pages is "about 16."
and you'll get this: Results 1-15 of about 16027165 containing "linux"
I hear that during a Google company meeting a couple weeks ago, the crowd was asked if they'd heard the rumor about Microsoft buying Google. Then they were asked to raise their hands if they believed the rumor. Only one person raised his hand - founder Larry Page. I like his sense of humor. ;)
the article never proved that MS was trying to buy google to run it into the ground. His proff consists of:
1) MS's search engine sucks.
2) Google's search engine is good.
3) MS wanted to buy Google
4) therefor MS wanted to run google into the ground and let thisr own service pimp for MS.
Once he assumes this important bit, he can make fun of MS, thus pulling in more readers. Man, I wish I could wrte garbage and get paid for it.
That little exercise showed no bias at all! Let me try my own experiment... I'll search for "powerpoint":
Google: 6,260,000 hits
MSN: 14 hits
I conclude that Microsoft is trying to kill their own PowerPoint product (even more than they want to kill Linux!). Thankfully, the people at Google must rely on PowerPoint so much, they want to make sure to keep the word out there.
Or... stay with me here... maybe Google has a more powerful and capable search engine that can harvest more results. I suppose its possible THAT could explain why Microsoft would want to buy them.
It's possible such a takeover could be blocked by European competition law (yes, I appreciate neither is a European company, but it's hardly viable to have google separately owned in Europe but owned by Microsoft in the States).
Does anybody know or has anybody read anything on what the US anti-trust position would be?
Results 1-15 of about 450796 containing "GNU/Linux"
Russe in Beton und Stahl, müde alles Material.
MSN:
34 pancakes
41 waffles
232 frogs
695 sky
3117 tree
Goooooogle - said "...about xxx,xxx"
791,000 pancakes
412,000 waffles
640,000 frogs
20,700,000 sky
37,600,000 tree
Which proves Microsoft hates pancakes, waffles, frogs, the sky and trees. Bastards!
Hrm. Interesting. I just ran these searches myself, and got contrary information to the parent.
linux on MSN: 365
linux on google: 65,100,000
windows on msn: 2373
windows on google: 67,900,000
This is contrary to the 95,000,000 search results for linux that are reported in the article. What's the deal? Maybe an ISP cache of google that's outdated?
Also, there's roughly a:
(using the 95 million figure)
260274/1 search ratio on linux for google/msn
28614/1 search ratio on windows for google/msn
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Click the "Next" button a few times on that "Linux Windows" search.
You'll see:
Results 31-45 of about 8897853
Would hate to Slashdot Google
Mirror
--
Everyone hates me because I'm paranoid.
Try "evil empire microsoft" ... www.microsoft.com
The first result on MSN is
Why? Many people above have pointed out this article is not correct. The first results you get from MSN searches are sponsored links. Then if you hit next (or if there are no sponsored links) then you get the real search results.
I'm pretty sure that I've heard of a few virii or worms going around that, among other things, blocked google. What an amazing coincidence... Anyways, here goes M$ with more anticompetitive behavior, maybe if we all get really pissed and make a big deal of it they'll get fined $500k. Nothing we can do about it. Oh well, shit happens, at least they're losing customers to apache. That's a start, all we need is to get linux more popular as an os for all those aol users out there
"73% of quotes on the Internet are made up" -Ben Franklin
What we are probably seeing is a beta of Microsoft' s search product, followed by backfill from Inktomi (this is why the search counts differ).
This only seems to happen on "popular" search queries, like open source (74 msn, 8,013,904 backfill, 11,700,000 google), and baseball (1974 msn, , 20,500,000 google), and linux (365 msn, 16,291,540 backfill, 92,000,000 google). "Unpopular" terms like wax museum just get backfill (151,414 msn backfill, 282,000 google). By only appearing on select popular terms it gives them a chance to test their product on search queries that an immature search product is likely to have results on (or maybe all search queries go through this new search first, and terms like wax museum just don't have any hits yet forcing the backfill to page one).
However, you assertion that the author has no idea how MSN Search works is probably spot on (both the submitter to Slashdot and the referenced author). Whatever Microsoft's feelings are about open source solutions, they're smart enough to know that surpressing information in the free portion of search is a PR disaster waiting to happen.
Results 1-15 of about 50 containing ""charles dickens""
Going to the next page gives 16-30 and so on.
It is only the patient searcher who will discover that after all 45 of the 50 hits are seen that there are 151383 results left to go.
So I agree, its not that MSN Search is biased against Linux. It is that MSN Search is biased toward those willing to spend money to be listed. And (as a direct effect of that) MSN Search is biased against those trying to find information.
They're not being dishonest for ideological reasons - they're just not interested in honesty or usefulness so much as they're interested in selling themselves. (I'll resist direct comparisons with the kind of prostitutes who are honest about what they're doing.) (OK, so my resistance crumbled.)
And of course, they'll never go broke underestimating the american public.
I'd wager a bet that most of us replying to this thread use the internet for research purposes daily. The fact that I just searched for linux on http://search.msn.com and came up with roughly 350+ hits shows that the owner of that search engine wants to limit my access to content on that topic. I think it's time for legislation involving search engines providing information on how they provide their results. Microsoft is obviously either blocking results that pertain to Linux or they need to state exactly how their search engine works if this is not the case.
Perhaps someone needs to explain how capitalism is supposed to work to the clueless Google management team. Looks like they still think that offering a better product/service translates into financial gain for the company.
Don't they know anything about changing a horizontal market into a vertical one, locking users in with Digital Restrictions Management, absolving all sense of responsibility with a EULA, and ensuring product obsolescence?
Amazing that these guys could even find funding with their cluelessness. Must've occurred during the irrational dot-com business-model era in the 90's.
Gee, maybe it's a bug. Yeah, I know, Microsoft never suffers from bugs.
Anyone and everyone can see the "next" button at the top and bottom of the screen. Few people look at the "total number of hits" tally because 99.99% of the time there are lots of hits -- who cares anymore? That's a remnant of the days when web pages were scarce. This is totally a non-issue.
MSN results (yes, I read about sponsored links):
office - 5204
windows - 2373
server - 2121
money - 982
terrorism - 249
osama - 103
bill gates - 63
linus torvalds - 323738
Then you can go out and market OSS for 'us'.
.
You seem to misunderstand what i was saying. The average citizen reads and believes what he sees in the media, this includes places such as Google.
If all they see is one thing ( in this case, Microsoft ) then they will believe this is the only option. That is just human behavior.
While I agree we need to educate people ( and I do my part, do you? ) this does nothing for the *rest* of the world that doesn't get exposure except via the mass media, which 'teach your friend' doesn't qualify.. This is where things such as controlling search engine content come into play.. Or control of content on TV ( MSNBC as an example )
How do you propose to solve that, since you seem to think you know so much?
Calling them 'average consumer' isn't a insult, its f-ing reality.. Its how the mass consumer world works.. MOST people are 'average consumers'. And they could really care less about this.. all they care about is what they are spoon fed.. You should read up about basic marketing techniques before you spout off again..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So, if I understand you - which I probably don't - Microsoft is a Bad, Evil Thing for being biased.... in favor of it's own products? So... they own a search engine and that bias shows. But, nobody has to actually use that site. But that doesn't matter because Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to act in its own best interests to reach its stated goal of making money when people actively choose to get information from them or remain willfully ignorant of alternative sources? So, it's Microsoft's fault that people are stupid and easily leveraged for cash flow?
Christ man... if you're going to bash Microsoft for being the Evil Empire go ahead, but at least pick one of the 82 million things that they actually ought to be blamed for. Funny thing about owning your own informational sources - you can be as bloody biased as you want. I don't see anything on MSN that says they're Fair and Balanced like good old Fox news.... er... wait.. I mean.. they ARE fair and balanced exactly the way Fox News is, they just don't lie about it like Fox does. Hell.. if they weren't biased in favor of their own products they'd just be idiots.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
I just tried those searches. MSN gave me 365 and google 97,000,000. Still an obvious discrepency though. I don't know why we're trusting inquirer for our technology news...
-Bl33d
Every windows user is a sadomasochist.
Strange. I certainly don't want to defend MSN search, but it seems to intentionally limit the response set for common words. Hence, low numbers of responses for "linux", "apache", and "windows". But if you search for "apache server", there's about 5 million responses on MSN search.
...Nothing interesting here. Just move along...
If you really wanted to make Google look inferior, you should have searched for "candle trucks" instead of just plain "trucks" :-)
As long as we're searching for communist...
on MSN
mom -- 315
apple pie -- 57
american flag -- 294
on google
mom -- 13,800,000
apple pie -- 2,050,000
american flag -- 3,490,000
Hmmm, it's interesting to look at the ratios...
mom/apple pie
msn 5.526
google 6.731
apple pie/american flag
msn 0.1938
google 0.587
american flag/mom
msn 0.933
google 0.2528
So if MSN were searching different subspaces (randomly) of the net they'd have the same ratios, but different numbers. Rather they are selecting "hits" differently.
But the important thing is that the ratios indicate a higher proportion of american flag hits on MSN as compared to mom and apple pie so even though google has more american flag links MSN is the more american engine.
On MSN, the first page displays sponsored results...you can see the real number of results on page 2. BTW, I'm a bit surprised most people's 1st criteria for a good search engine is the number of results.
____
nico
Nico-Live
MSN 20730
Google 45,000
I prefer a void in conversation to a vacuous one.
MSN's paid search hits ("featured sites") are clearly pro-Microsoft. It's less clear that the real search results are. MSN's search results aren't as useful as Google's, but that may just be inferior technology. MSN tends to return far more outdated pages.
How about windows?
MSN = 2,373
Google = 67,800,000
I believe the bone of contention here is what would have happened to our quality of web searching, had Microsoft been successful in their (alleged?) bid to buy Google.
HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
when I do that search on MSN I see 8897853 hits? Was this corrected my Microsoft that fast, or could this be shoddy journalism? Just a question...
+++++++
"Look, dear, it's a crazy hairy scary man!"
Do a search on msn.com for "linux vs. windows" (here) and you get 521343 hits.
Do the same on Google (here), you get 2,150,000 hits.
Now, if you want to conclude that MSN is an inferior search engine, I agree 100%. Saying or even implying that it gives bogus results tailored to support MS's whim is just a bold-faced lie.
Just because one search engine returns different results than another is in no way proof of a conspiracy on anyone's parts. It just highlights that the engines work in different ways and index different amounts and likely types of data.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
Think "newspaper" or even "phone book" and go through that thought process again.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
if anybody would "crush/cannibalise/castrate" google, the next good==popular search engine is only but a few geeks and good ideas away. There are quite a number of contestants lined up and waiting and the barrier to entry for the search engine market is still very low. Google's main asset IMHO is its brand name.
So, I don't really get google's attractiveness to buyers. They're fine and dandy but still only a search engine with a good advertising business. The moment big companies (Yahoo, MSFT, whoever) make a real push into Google's market (aka. high quality search results with the combined cash revenue from adverts), and they will, I would like to see what inherent benefits Google can offer to those from the advertisers perspective.
Yeah, I think Google is excellent (and cool) too, but then I'm not an investor.
This really makes you wonder how valuable a news source Slashdot is. Long time readers know that stories are moderated to their front page status, but how much do readers understand that that is different than vetting the story for accuracy or truth? Indeed, there is no effort to correct the story in this case... usually 'Updates' are reserved for shutting up complaints about duplicate stories or pointing out updates to previously posted stories.
As for the Microsoft's reason for wanting to buy Google? I wonder if it has to do with being a good company? Being a solid competitor that Microsoft would rather acquire than compete head to head against? I think stories commenting on Microsoft's efforts to buy Google can be better informed by looking at Microsoft's efforts to acquire Intuit some years ago rather than some conspiracy theory hatched by a person that clearly doesn't leave their monitor lit, basement room nearly enough.
The number changes on every page too after a while.
Results 1-15 of about 365 containing "linux"
Results 76-90 of about 344 containing "linux"
Results 211-225 of about 262 containing "linux"
Results 226-240 of about 253 containing "linux"
Results 241-255 of about 16242034 containing "linux"
Results 1-15 of about 16 containing "linux windows"
Results 16-30 of about 8897867 containing "linux windows"
Results 31-45 of about 8897853 containing "linux windows"
I dont think this has anything to do with an ulterior motive by microsoft. I think its just a shoddy search engine made by them with their usual incompetence.
This post was spellchecked by google.
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
Surely antitrust law is designed to stop monopolies becoming even stronger than they already are? Surely DOJ should be preventing Microsoft expanding its dominance?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Also, remember that the very same justification was used by King George in england to abuse the American colonies...because the King's pals [the "owners" of the settling corps] approved of the taxes and regulations Britian make that would never have seen the light of day in their own country! We've been there and done this...killed people over it! Now "freedom" is protection corperate oil profits...pretty sad...
I guess Google is going to use the cash from the IPO to buy microsoft:).
Doing a search for fuzzy hampster cock returns a full 166 results while the same on MSN returns only 64 and the first one points to Slashdot.
What is Gates up to?
Ecce Europa - Web Design for Business
After all you people tried to burn Microsoft in the fire, I just tried something different by searching MSN for other stuff:
"Windows 98" returned 110 hits
"Windows CE" returned 114 hits
"Windows 95" returned 134 hits
"Windows XP" returned 297 hits
"Windows 2000" returned 315 hits
"Windows ME" returned 2230 hits
This proves that MSN has a quite odd way to do the searchs, and frankly, they are f*****g up themselves too, not just Linux, and in conclusion MSN just isn't useful for looking up stuff in the net.
felipe at cantv dot net
It seems that microsoft has found that its own search technology is far inferior to that of google. Now the only way to compensate would be either to improve their own technology (laugh here) or to buy out google.
since google is still a private corporation, it would be hard for them to do that. But once google goes public-- it becomes fair game.
You mean phone book as in the phone books that have huge-ass ads all over the insides of them?
MSN sucks. Don't use it. Wow, problem solved.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
It's very obviously different from google, as you must know if you read ANY of the submission, the article it linked, the discussion I linked...
Sun, SCO and IBM used to be real bad for it. IBM has cleaned up a lot. Sun, too, has been forced to clean up to stay in business in a lot of ways, although they can certainly still be annoying. SCO, of course, eventually were driven out of the business and their assets sold off. But it's MS that have perfected this way of doing business, even though they didn't originate it.
There are lots of 'businessmen' that think the way to respond when you're being out-competed is to buy the competition and neuter them so the customers are forced to come back, rather than cleaning up your act so the customers want to come back. Stupid as it is, that's a pretty typical mindset in some crowds. But, for now at least, MS is particularly successful in doing so, and therefore particularly annoying. That's all.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Try searching on "linux windows" "suse windows" and "redhat windows". For "linux windows" you get 16 results, as per the article. For "suse windows" you get almost a half million. For "redhat windows" you get almost the same. So, Microsoft must love SuSE?
They can do whatever they want with their own search engine.
But what's happened is that, in part because they use it as an ad channel rather than a straightforward search engine, users don't find it very useful and tend to use the competition (primarily google) instead. Now, MS has a captive market consisting of those people who don't realise they can change browsers and use other search sites, but that's far from the whole market, and the rest of us don't typically use MSN - we use google. So far, so good, this is the way the market is supposed to operate. If MSN wants to stick with their captives and push ads, so be it. If they want to become attractive to the rest of us, though, they'll have to give that ad channel up.
So, MicroSoft thinking at it's best, what they want to do instead is just buy Google and turn it into an MSN clone, removing that choice and making the whole market captive again! THIS is what upsets people.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Linux is more popular than Jesus.
Linux
Alta Vista 12,435,923
Google 96,900,000
msn 365
Yahoo 55,200,000
Dog Pile (Infospace) 102
Lycos 26,838,236
Excite 111
Alltheweb 17,082,765
Jesus
Alta Vista 6,377,521
Google 23,800,000
msn 432
Yahoo 15,900,000
Dog Pile (Infospace) 114
Lycos 34,032,913
Excite 107
Alltheweb 26,131,824
Interesting to note, a search of Infospace and Microsoft on Google comes up with 35,000 hits. Further reading indicates a large number of partnering going on.
Conspiracy or just bad search engines?
WARNING: WE HAVE NOT CONDUCTED A FELONY-CONVICTION SEARCH OR FBI SEARCH ON THIS INDIVIDUAL.
After following the MSN link, go down to the bottom of the page, hit next, (or click here if you're too lazy) then you'll see an updated number.
Results 16-30 of about 8897867 containing "linux windows"
That's right. Slashdot lies. And guess what, that's a bigger number than what google puts up.
__________________________________________
Take comfort in your ignorance.
Grandmaster Plague
No. It proves that Microsoft fears those things, just like they fear Linux.
Uh-huh.
A Good Intro to NetBS
Microsoft doesn't want Google because they perceive them as a threat. They want Google because Google has what they see as the most important thing in the world - the front door to the Internet.
Microsoft knows that it while it may be impossible buy the protocols and standards that run the Internet, they can conceivably buy the de facto "gatekeeper".
Thing is, Google as is so popular, partly because of it's level of integrity as a company, not the other way around. It would be so easy for them to abuse this position if only for a while. Given Microsoft's track record, I think they would find the opportunities to abuse Google's position irresistable, which of course, would probably destroy Google's position as leader in fairly short order anyway.
But you're obviously a left-wing cook, so who cares what you think? Seriously...you partisans have it all wrong.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
If you click on the next page link, it says:
Results 16-30 of about 8878057 containing "linux windows"
That's even 2 mil. more than google finds for me.
The site where: "I'm right, as long as you ignore the things that prove me wrong", became a valid method of debate.
Yes. Adds aren't bad, as you likely agree (?), it's the positioning of them that is drastically different when compared between phone books and newspapers vs. MSN search. (also agree?) MSN sucks. Don't use it. Wow, problem solved.
Not a problem for me.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Microsoft's result counter is only 23 bits, so it's just overflowed and started again... Who in their right mind would ever need more than 8.3 million results anyway?
Curse you plastic mold maker!
Your missing some important details. First of all, many don't choose to use MSN to search, they choose not to find other options. Also, Microsoft chooses this search engine as their default page, so most are inclined to use it without question. Maybe those searching are ignorant as you say. Still, I must ask. Is it a company's purpose to continually keep their customers ignorant and build an entire propaganda machine designed to keep it this way? I thought a company's purpose was to provide products and/or services to a client. Where in the definition of business or economics is it right to use propaganda, deceit, lock-ins, and a lot of anti-competitive behavior?
Maybe if your learning your business practices from a mafia, gang, or other illegitimate organization then I can see why you defend them.
Question everything.
Google only allows you to go 100 pages deep in your search result, so who cares what the number of returns is is in the hundreds of thousands, you're never gonna see those low-ranked returns anyway.
In fact, you shouldn't. What matters most is not how many returns you get for your search, but how good the first page of returns are at being what you had in mind. The object of the search game is for the #1 hit to be what you wanted and everything else not to matter.
MSN is the default page for IE and the default page for mis-typed URLs in IE. MSN must get hits in the hundreds of millions per day. Do you really want to suggest it's to Microsoft's credit that the front page has a bug of that magnitude? It's far kinder to call them dishonest.
I decided to check it out after you mentioned it. I ran a search for "fark" on it, in any language and content filtering off.
.com, I'm not sure. Now the next result confused the hell out of me: earthwire.net. Apparently that's is some sort of alternative domain for fark.com (just trying going there). Many more results were for fark.ru and fark personals. I didn't look past the second page for a fark.com link.
Alltheweb: 987,129 pages.
Google: 771,000 pages.
It looks like they hit the ground running, however let's look at the first 3 results of each.
Google: Fark.com (followed by a second page at fark.com), ScreamingMidget, and Fark Personals. The screamingmidget page was about fark cliches, and was pretty relevant.
Alltheweb.com: goatse.ecx. Yes I have the filter off, yet how the hell was this rated higher for fark than fark.com? Next: fark.ru. This took a very long time to load, but it does actually appear to be a russian fark page. Why this was given priority of the
I am very impressed with the number of pages it turned up (a couple hundred thousand more than google), but they don't seem to have a good scoring system.
A note: I turned on their offensive page filter, and goatse.cx remained the first result on the list.
Now that it has been disclosed that the original story was wrong (MSN returns more than 15 hits) lets ask if more is better. How many people look past the first million or so?
No default engine? No go. The user would have to go the extra mile and choose an engine. How would he choose it? From a list? Ok, then what engine would go to the top of the list? That's after all the engine most people will pick.
The point about Microsoft's software being most popular is a moot point. They've done good business and they can do whatever they want with their browser. Why should they be punished for being good at marketing?
The owls are not what they seem
Much akin to the progress indicator for transferring this file has been saying 30seconds for more than an hour.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
I'd be interested to know if, in the interest of efficiency, or for other reasons, employees of Microsoft are allowed to use Google, rather than MSN at work. Or, is there another search mechanism/algorithm for the MSN knowledge corpus in use within Redmond that provides more Google-like results.
I can't believe that a good geek/techie can do a lot of his work without a decent search engine, and would Micorosoft be so stupid as to hobble their employees with an inferior search engine?
Anyone out there from the belly of the beast care to comment?
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
OK, suppose MSN changed the statistic out of pure evilness. SO WHAT? Virtually no one reads that statistic. In fact, search engines should only show that stat in advanced searches specifically because few people ever use it for any purpose. MSN still has 8 million hits for that search combination readable by anyone and everyone conducting the search. I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy, but you devalue the Linux argument by whining over something so trivial.
Get out and vote for ethical politicians (if you can find any).
Anarchists never rule
Your mindset seems to be that if something is legal then it's beyond reproach. I don't agree. There should be ongoing evaluations of how well the public good is being served by corporations, and when legalities have given way to corruption.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Google's Deskbar beats the crap out of any MS search tools and makes them look not as innovative. Buy them before they put us to any more shame.
Flying Pigs on eBay
Find flying pig items at low prices. With over 5 million items for sale every day, you'll find all kinds of unique things on ebay - the world's online marketplace.
www.ebay.com
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Ah yes, searching on google for xxx. We've all been there.
-- And when Justice is gone, there is always... Force. --Laurie Anderson, "Oh Superman"
Results 1-15 of about 126572 containing "microsoft sucks"
Results 1-15 of about 132328 containing "linux sucks"
It appears Linux sucks more (just marginally mind you) according to MSN.
Some like it Hotter Stuff
Linux and Mozilla customers get 5% off.
82 million?! Google says there's only 3,430 things that microsoft actually ought to be blamed for!
Thanks John, here I thought you were dead! Linux and the Beatles are *BOTH* more popular than Jesus.
TT
If it was only that Microsoft was good at Marketing I'd be OK with that, let those who are swayed by the Marketing buy the products for better or worse. However, they have crossed over the line from just hyping products to customers to using anti-competitive practices to dominate the market by unfair means. They make up for the shortcomings in the products by these behaviors, and try to hide behind words and lawyers. When is the last time we have seen real innovation in a Microsoft product? When did comsumers get more for less? I'm very much free enterprise, and all for good and clever Marketing but monopolistic practices stifle innovation inside the monopolistic firm and within the industry segement.Competition is good! As far as politics go, conservatives are more pro-business (not pro-monopoly..you are just acting ignorant to say one is the same as the other) and let the market (people) decide, and liberals are more pro Government control via rules/regulations. This distinction is plainly clear if you just look at the facts As for Liunx/OpenSource, I think it is a great idea, I fully agree with it, but it's more like a scapel to do surgery with versus the Microsoft broadsword that slays anything in it's path. As it stands now Linux is not going to stop Microsoft, heck even the Government can't seem to stop Microsoft. The only way to stop them is to educate about the other options and make these options available and easy to use. Until you can convince the general computer buying public (and the mass media) the Linux isn't just for /. geeks you are not going to make any headway against Microsoft no matter how bad you think their products and behavior are. I'll probably get lots of hate mail about this but it's the truth.
Who'd a thunk it? Microsoft agrees!
:)
Do a search for Linux on MSN search and take a look at the page title.
The "1 - 365" results are "Featured sites" and "Web Directory Sites";
Once you pass those pages, you have "Web Pages" (in light gray, after the last web-directory sites link) which has approximately 15 989 646 pages.
"I think its just a shoddy search engine made by them with their usual incompetence. "
They approximate, just like Google. They may be biases but the difference in numbers you mentionned isn't incompetent programming; they just chose to show the number of "featured sites" instead of all of the web pages.
And since the average windows/Msn user probably never looks beyond page 5, it's a good choice [IMO]
Al
Google:
* 6.2 million hits for Money shot
MSN:
* 1.7 hits for Money Shot
Google: The one stop porn search shop
My point? Who says I need one? I'm just here to report the facts.
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
It would be a good choice if the "featured sites" weren't the paid ones. MSN not only shows you the paid listings first, they're intentionally making it difficult to see beyond them. Thats borderline unethical, imo.
maybe google just has more disk space.
I'm sure if microsoft could afford more disk arrays, and could get clusters of hundreds of thousands of machines actually playing nice together running windows, they would have a quality search engine.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
I have to say, it never even occurred to me that squashing competitor information might be a motive for Microsoft's attempted buy but it really does make sense. If Microsoft could gain control of the most popular search engine on the Internet, they could make it harder to research information of alternate operating systems, Windows security hacks or problems, or even webpages that are critical of Windows and MS.
Of course, if they had purchased Google, I would have promptly stopped using it.
Linux = 13,100,000
Microsoft = 10,100,000
While they don't make it obvious, the first 16 are "web directory" sites:
These are probably analagous to the Yahoo!Directory or ODP results. If you go to the next page, you get:
Of course, the categories are in little grey text smaller than the search results themselves...
"Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself." -Richard Feynman
This is wrong. MSN estimates there are around 16 results. However, if you hit Next, it does a better estimate of over 8 million.
This is just a problem with the estimator. If you just search for "Windows", it estimates less than 3 thousand hits.
Adds aren't bad, but multadds are better.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
It would be a good choice if the "featured sites" weren't the paid ones. MSN not only shows you the paid listings first, they're intentionally making it difficult to see beyond them. Thats borderline unethical, imo.
I don't feel particularly strong about this, but I'm gonna bite anyway. Did you know that people pay to have ads placed in the yellow pages? Did you know that you can pay more to have your ad placed multiple times. You can even pay to have it placed in sections where it doesn't really make sense.
I suppose one could argue that we all know that money is paid for those ads. But microsoft categorizes their results. They are broken up into sections like "featured sites" and "sponsored sites", etc... and they give definitions for this.
So I don't see anything unethical about that.
Never attribute to incompetence what can be expalined by malice. MS has long and storied history of sleazy behavior. You really think MS engineers are that stupid and inept? There must be lots of MS employees here maybe then can speak up. Are you fellow co-workers really inept?
War is necrophilia.
I tried searching for 'freebsd' on both search.msn.com and www.google.com, and there was much less of a discrepancy. In fact, MSN pulled up twice as many pages (11 mil) on FreeBSD as did google (5 mil), and the official freebsd site was the number one result on MSN and was even marked as a top pick.
This makes the idea that MS is using their search engine (which could be argued is a public service, sort of) to compete against Linux even more credible. Of course, MS has every right to do so, but then, we have every right to point it out.
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard
Give up comparing the number of results by query! It's NOT ACCURATE. The MSN search is buggy, which should be apparent to anyone who hits the "NEXT >>" button a few times.
The number of results changes frequently (but not always), and you never reach the suggested limit. For example, "waffles" is only supposed to have 41 matches, but continues long past 100.
This is really a silly exercise and not a great measure of bias.
What the rest of us should do is to educate the public about what the MSN search engine does. When you see somebody using a MSN home page take the time to educate them. Simply do a search both on MSN and Google and explain to the user that the first 5 pages on the MSN search are ads and not search results. Maybe open up the fine print on the MSN search and point this out.
Education is your best weapon. The users must realize and ANY search engine run by MS is nothing but a billboard for ads. If MS buys google they will end up turning it into an ad service as well. An educated search consumer could detect this and switch.
War is necrophilia.
I'm not sure which is more pathetic: That a company would do that, or that M$'s credibility is so low that it wouldn't surprise anyone if they tried it?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Um, Linux is Jesus, where have you been? You know, right? It saves us?
If MS bought google i'm guessing there would no longer be an http://www.google.com/linux
We can't find "127.0.0.1"
You can try again by typing the URL in the address bar above.
Or, search the Web:
Go to MSN Search to see complete results for "127.0.0.1".
____________________
You can also visit one of these related Web sites.
In the Swim - E-Z Vac By Kreepy Krauly
In the Swim - Robotech Commercial Pool Cleaners
In the Swim - Replacement Hoses
Check availability or register the domain name '127.0.0.1'.
____________________
More information about this error.
About Results
Not satisfied with your results? Help us improve.
Powered by MSN Search
Wow. Now that's a comprehensive search if I ever saw one.
Funny how only HALF of the search engines you used has Linux more popular than Jesus, yet you still say it anyway... :/
I don't know if this was mentioned already but while "Windows" only gets around 2,300 hits "Windows Sucks" gets around 211,000 hits.
I was going to compare this to the number of Mac vs Mac sucks hits, but I had to stop when I did the Mac sucks search and the first entry was "Why Microsoft sucks".
both, its a conspiracy to make bad search engine's
--The Titanic was built by proffesionals. --The Ark was built by Amatures.
Depending on where you live different data centers return different results. Over time the results are suppose to even out
It should even out over time within a given country, but from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, it doesn't. Many countries censor derivatives of works of long-dead authors. Other countries censor works that harshly criticize their governments.
Will I retire or break 10K?
[Google Adwords] are paid placements. So Google isn't lily white pure!
Those paid placements are clearly marked in a pastel color. The part of the result page with a lily white background is still lily white pure, no?
Will I retire or break 10K?
While it is true that typing "linux windows" on Google produces substantialy more results than it does on MSN, so does anything else. Try "peaches," this comes up with 1 million + for Google, vs. 164 for MSN. While I don't doubt that MSN gives biased results, this is simply not relavant proof.
Ok, I'll think newspaper.
Result: totally and completely unrelated comparison. Phone book: we're still comparing completely different things.
That was easy.
Explain to me again how a newspaper run by itself is the same as a private, corporate entity? Maybe if we were comparing a newspaper that Microsoft ran or something....
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Where in the definition of business or economics is it right to use propaganda, deceit, lock-ins, and a lot of anti-competitive behavior?
Whoops, you shot right past the point!
Seriously though... those are a completely different subject. Resolving them may eliminate MSN as a competitor, but that's a residual effect of fixing the REAL problem. It's their search, they can do whatever they damn well please. If people are too dumb not to change their default settings, WHO is to blame?
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
I'm sure no one is surprised that Microsoft would want to do this. It's clearly in their own best interests.
However to go ahead and perform this extreme level of censorship, in a blatantly public form, is quite unbelievable.
After witnessing something like this, how could anyone trust Microsoft? Especially a group like the government of a country, etc. Is it any wonder that the government of China is concerned about what's contained in Windows?
Clearly a tin foil hat attitude towards Microsoft should be encouraged by this simple proof that even the most uneducated person should be able to understand.
Are you trolling, or just stupid?
Or, was that a dumb joke?
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Hardly. I'm a big fan of holding people responsible for their own stupidity. I think if you can leverage idiotic behavior in large masses of stupid people and empty their wallets in the process, that's their problem. It's one thing if you're actively defrauding them, but if they're remaining willfully ignorant when they make their buying decisions, who's fault is it? I mean... really now.. if you just go out and buy the first car you see on the lot just because it's up front, I'm not going to have a whole lot of sympathy for you when the wheels fall off 2 miles up the road...
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
I am a left-wing cook, you insensitive clod! And my "Green Party Restaurant" has won many awards. How dare you insult me!
I tweaked that a little and got....
"things that microsoft should be blamed for" - 21,700.
"things that microsoft should are guilty of" - 63,400.
"microsoft crimes" - 142,000.
Results 16-30 of about 8661564 containing "linux windows"
I think Microsoft really just wanted to buy Google because Microsoft's own search engine can't count very well. It would be cheaper for MS to invest in someone elses technology to implement this feature than to try to wrangle their own exotic technology to return "number of results found." Or so I speculate...
I am too; stylistically I wouldn't choose to state it as above, but I am a fan of accountability for individuals and corporations alike. If your position were a machievellian one that rationalizes doing something because it's possible to do then I wouldn't agree, but if I understand correctly then perhaps you and I simply have a different threshhold of what we'd consider "stupid" in this particular case. It seems your position that when people don't have an awareness of how search results may be skewed in favor of a given business, then they deserve to be taken advantage of and critics should be silent.
I think there's a component of untruthful advertising to this issue. Microsoft may not actually commit themselves to objectivity by saying "our search results are unbiased with regard to any commercial interests" but it's not an unreasonable expectation of a search engine; after all, google has set the precedent of making money via advertisements, not by covert manipulation of results.
If I drive past a gas station and ask to have my engine checked, the station may well try to bilk me out of money by claiming I need more work done than is the case. There are ways for the station to claim this without technically breaking the law, but I don't regard myself as stupid for not knowing enough about cars to certify the station's results; at least not stupid in a perjorative way. And, I wouldn't regard the station as on uncriticizable moral ground for doing so. This may all come down to my world vision, where I'd like to steer the world towards honest exchanges without people stabbing each other in the back at every opportunity. I realize that not everybody wants to live in such a world.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
When adding the word 'difference' to the search (msn, google) gives some nice results:
MSN
1)CNN.com - Technology - What's the difference between Windows and Linux? - March 3, 2000
2)Linux.com
3)Web Ad Blocking Under Linux/Unix, BeOS, MacOS and Windows
5)How to Replace Windows NT with Linux
Google
1)The Great Linux-Windows NT Debate - Making_Linux_NT-Like
2)Qt-interest Archive - difference pathname linux-windows
3)Linux vs. Windows: Choice vs. Usability
and more alike
Thus maybe MSN is only 'biased' with very 'simple' searches. On the other hand, I can't understand the signifigance of nr. 2 at the google search
"Sanity is not statistical", George Orwell, "1984"
MSN only has 12 hits for "homoerotic regurgitation", but Google has 28. Maybe they want to buy Google to supress homoerotic regugiphiles, rather than Linux?
You can look at the most cited papers, or the most accessed papers on cite-seer for a good list of classics: http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/access.html
Looks like everyone's missing the point here. What Microsoft does with their own search engine is their own business.
However, they have been trying to pressure Google into selling. Then it becomes a concern because currently Google is the only decent search engine available. Do you honestly believe MS would buy google and keep it unchanged? They're more interested in simply eliminating competition and getting a couple of good patents than actually running the best search engine in the world.
If they were just interested in running a decent search engine, they wouldn't have to buy Google. They could write one. The key is that they don't want a good search engine, they want a good marketing device.
When they leverage their backbone to try to muscle out the competition, that is when it becomes a problem for everyone.
-- If it ain't broke - overclock it more.
Webcrawler- 116 hits for "porn", but only 36 for "nuclear fusion".
I sense a pro-pornography, anti-nuclear bias in Webcrawler!
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
If the author had bothered to click 'next' Results 16-30 of about 8897489 containing "linux windows" DOH!
Java has 376 hits. And Java does have some other meanings. Borneo has 210961 hits. And 1845 of those hits for "Borneo Python". So that brings us to another language. Python has 36 hits, and some of those are for Monty and the snakes! However, "Guido van Rossum" gets 9868 hits. The first 45 hits are all about the benevolent dictator of Python (I got bored after that, its probably a lot more) .. I wonder what he was talking about, must not have been his language.
This is fun ... we can now quantify how badly Bill hates you - The Google/MSN Ratio (GRM)
Technology Google MSN GMR
Python 9.9M 36 275000
Java 53.7M 376 142819
OpenBSD 3.5M 251143 13 (sob)
NetBSD 4.76M 191501 25
Linux 97M 365 265753
---------------
So for now, Python still has a higer GMR ratio than Linux.
Think global, act loco
The maximum number of hits a particular search can sustain is between 5 and 100.
:) So there's some really smart AI there.
This was a great surprise to the engineers building search engines -- the original problem was, how do we find particular keywords across hundreds of millions of documents? This was solved relatively trivially -- index by keyword, and distribute the search space across the memory of many, many machines. All of the sudden, it became apparent that search had much less to do with how much you could search and much more to do with which results came up first.
That's a much harder problem -- fundamentally, without the user telling you what he wants, how can you figure out what he's most likely to desire? This actually uses artificial intelligence techniques, much to the consternation of the eternally discredited AI folk who point out that "the moment AI becomes useful, it ceases to be called AI" (which is true). It's AI because you effectively need to programmatically derive what an intelligent surfer is most interested in, as an abstract subject instead of a concrete phrase. Google gets alot of credit for their Pagerank algorithm, which uses links from other sites to weigh which links are more "authoritative" than others, but interestingly enough their system is noticably robust even without outside links. Corporate websites all tend to run 1998-era search engines -- all quantity, no quality (and in this case, quantity has no quality all its own). Some time ago, I worked at a massive company that was testing Google for internal searches. Corporate web pages are far less cross-linked than the web itself. But Google-internal worked just like...well, Google
Anyway, as I've said before, MS can't buy Google; they'd just create the market segment of "what Google used to be". Speaking as someone who has a healthy respect for MS as a company, they've simply burned through too much goodwill for people to trust their search results as authoritative. Yes, mysql only gets a few hits on MSN search. So does pancakes, and I doubt MS is part of the great Waffle Iron Conspiracy.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
"... REAL problem."
Are you saying the real problem is that people don't know any better?
"If people are too dumb not to change their default settings, WHO is to blame?"
Again, your saying that we blame the people that don't know any better?
Should we start punishing them for it?
"It's their search, they can do whatever they damn well please."
That attitude is what created all those monopolies in the early history of the United States. Do you know what I'm talking about? If not, I suggest you read up on that part of history. MS is not just large, but very large. We all already know that MS has used one part of their company to support another. There is other similar anti-competitive behavior you'll see coming from MS. That is my point, not that "they can do whatever they damn well please". The fact is, THEY CAN'T. They are way too large and a company as large as them must be kept in check by the government. That is the job of our government ever since the Antitrust Act.
Question everything.
Google would be a great deal if Microsoft could purchase it. Look at all that white space on the main search page. Just think how many Microsoft ads could fill that space. It would be better ad space the MSN messenger is. .net technology to the pages and Google would only work with a Windows PC running IE.
With googles technology MS could weed out redundant and taboo topics like Linux, UNIX, Mac, Opera, Quicken and the like. Add MS
Of course right now Google is designed to be quick loading, simple and efficient which pretty much goes against Microsoft software guidelines. Then again it might be better if Google had a search wizard and a paper clip avatar showing you how to search the net.
I know you meant "this" as in "this story" but it is also a generally fairly accurate description of /.
/.
Somebody posts a tidbit of information and there is a rush on uninformed speculation and rumour mongering.
Self esteem boost for the lazy.
Some people do stuff, but most just bitch about the people who do stuff. Slashdot started as a site for the people who do stuff, but realized that catering to the other crowd is much more lucrative. Toss in those flamebait articles and the second crowd salivates. The clickity-click and the empty posts begin: "Microsoft is so stupid. When will the giant see that they are about to fall. Sigh".
Clickity-click = $$$ for
Sorry to burst everyone's bubble, but you guys are getting EVERYTHING wrong. What MSN's search engine is doing, is listing the "WEB DIRECTORY" sites first. If you guys did a little better research, you would notice that it says "WEB DIRECTORY SITES" Right underneath the results. When you go to the next page, it then proceeds to say "WEB PAGES" which means the rest of the internet. MSN has it so that their featured, sponsored, etc sites are on the top, then the 'rest' of the internet is on the WEB PAGES section. God. Over 90% of you people are COMPLETELY clueless as to what you're talking about. Only 41 web pages on waffles?? NO! 41 SPONSERED websites on waffles. It goes on from there. Slashdot, PLEASE do research before posting your articles. It's very VERY embarrassing... especially when you are trying to "bash" Microsoft. Sure, Microsoft should have it in BOLD or something, but they are CLEARLY not saying that those pages are the ONLY ONES they can find on the internet. That's my two cents.
Much akin to the progress indicator for transferring this file has been saying 30seconds for more than an hour.
Hey, give them some credit where credit is due. They have made some tremendous speed boosts when it comes to progress bars. That first 99% goes by in only 1% of the time. You can't get that kind of performance under Linux.
Here are the results for different OSes:
OS: Google vs. MSN
aix: 3,550,000 vs. 40
solaris: 8,340,000 vs. 87
tru64: 676,000 vs. 93,433
hp-ux: 1,890,000 vs. 287,294
ms windows: 6,650,000 vs. 291
vms: 1,770,000 vs. 22
os2: 702,000 vs. 118,273
linux: 96,800,000 vs. 365
freebsd: 8,810,000 vs. 1,136,552
openbsd: 3,500,000 vs. 341,343
netbsd: 4,750,000 vs. 223,075
unix: 23,700,000 vs. 164
symbian: 1,400,000 vs. 420,701
"windows 2000": 6,750,000 vs. 315
"windows xp": 970,000 vs. 297
"windows server 2003": 4,170,000 vs. 30
I suppose one could argue that we all know that money is paid for those ads. But microsoft categorizes their results. They are broken up into sections like "featured sites" and "sponsored sites", etc... and they give definitions for this.
I'm going to have to call bullshit here. I never noticed the little "Featured sites" and "Web directory sites" headings until they were pointed out in a comment I just read. They're the same size and the same color as the URLs listed for each entry, and blend in to the point where they're almost unnoticeable. Further, not all sites withing "Web directory sites" are paid, which makes it even more difficult to find real results (yes I realize MS claims they don't prioritize the paid sites within that category, but should I trust them?). Now granted, I don't use MSN 99% of the time, but sponsored links should stand out instantly in my opinion.
Interestingly, an MSN search for the term " FreeBSD Windows returns more than half a million hits. In other words, Microsoft is filtering searches for Linux and not FreeBSD. (Perhaps this is because the BSDs haven't declared war on all commercial software vendors, including Microsoft?)
Results 1-15 of about 1121589 containing "linux kernel"
Its more specific, while 'linux' is toooo general, what the hell do you want? to buy it, support it, download it, ASK idiot.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
google is seriously cool. Everyone I've talked to at Microsoft has been telling me that they've wanted to buy it for a while.
I have a bit of an issue with anti-monopoly laws. The goal of any truly capitalistic corporation is monopoly, yet we flaunt it. Yet, the only way it works in it's raw, unrestrained form (in the eyes of corps) is when the consumers don't know anything.
Put, quite simply: if you willfully remain ignorant of issues that are of a significant interest to you (presumably you will not be searching on things that don't interest you and, even if you are, presumably you wouldn't care if they were skewed in that case) then whatever happens to you - short of outright fraud, is your own fault. I have no sympathy for people who refuse to make even a minor effort to educate themselves. It is not Microsoft's job to explain to people that Windows has alternatives and what banes/boons there are associated with them. It's Microsoft's search, if they want to cripple it that's their problem. If people use it "just because" and don't realize it's crippled, that's THEIR problem. Microsoft is a corporation, not an organization, not a government agency. As such, anything they provide should be treated with an appropriate level of scrutiny by individual's collecting data from them. Hell, the entire concept of advertising is based on skewing data most of the time. Should all the ads on TV have to explain alternatives and that the data they present in the ads is creatively interpreted / edited to make the product look good?
It's called accountability and responsibility. We can inflict it on corporations at taxpayer expense because consumers are too lazy or stupid to understand what's in their best interests, but why should we? If you can't intelligently place your money in other peoples' hands, then the only person to blame for getting screwed over is yourself. Period. The government should not have to dote on people who are too willfully stupid to bother taking the time to make intelligent decisions.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
MSN and Google don't have the same interests so you can't compare them that way. Microsoft makes Windows - they have a specific interest in promoting their system while denegrating others. Google just provides search services.
As far as you car example - the only way they could really bilk you on extra work legally is if they tried to short-change maintenance work (this is the entire basis for jiffy lube shops - 3m/3k miles is total bullshit unless you drive like a maniac). Really, if you didn't take the time to read your owner's manual on the recommended maintenance schedule, you're the only one to blame.
There is a certain level of knowledge that people must be expected to have if they're purchasing a product or service. In the computer world, it's just not met. Nobody bothers to find out how to maintain their system. Nobody reads the manuals. Nobody comparison shops intelligently (really now... how hard is it to learn the basic major components, what they do, and options there are...).
And, I don't WANT people to get ripped off, and I've no interest in ripping people off. I just want people to take a little bit of responsibility for their own decisions for once. If you flick the class bully in the ears and he stomps your head into the ground, you ought to have learned not to do it anymore. If you bought Windows 98 1st edition and the computer melted into an unidentifiable pile of goo on the floor right after you installed it, you should learn not to buy Windows anymore. It's not really that tough...
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
about 2202403 containing "linux features"
about 829257 containing "linux bugs"
about 3119922 containing "microsoft features"
about 20 containing "microsoft bugs"
No *wonder* Gates thinks M$ software is bug free!
He uses MSN!!!
MS wanted to buy Google, because to a large degree, the search engine (Google's natural language command line shell) is the way people interact with the OS, so it becomes the OS, in large part.
See this eweek article for more on this idea.
The difference is that, in the yellow pages, people are looking to spend their money. In search engines, this may or may not be the case. If I'm looking for information on how to fix my computer, I [personally] do not first want to see a bunch of ads about buying a new computer.
one step forward for m$, one huge freakin step for what was a good search engine.
uidzer0.org
Interesting?
The Harry Fletcher article claims 14 million hits on "linux windows". Taco's summary (a week later) claims 9 million. I just tried and got 5.97 million. Is Goooogle trying to reduce the number of hits to match MS?
"so quit assuming that just because people have the MSN home page up that they must not be aware that other web sites exist."
Nonsense. It's prefectly safe to assume that those people have MSN as their home page because IE came that way. Even if the user actually chose MSN you can still educate them on the sleazy things MS does and how unethical the corporation and their management is. You can encourage them to support a better economy and a better business environment by supporting better companies. Given proper education consumers will usually choose a more ethical product. For an example of this go count how many brands of Tuna do not say "dolphin safe" on them. The reason why tuna harvesting changed is because the consumers chose to buy the "dolphin safe" tuna rather then competitors even if the competitor cost less.
"Depending on what I'm searching for I can easily browse through several pages of shopping links before I get to actual info."
It's obvious you have never used google. Pleas go and actually use google before compalining about having to page through several pages of links before you get real search results.
War is necrophilia.
I know 'regular people' - and I know many of them don't understand these things. They use IE cause it's on the computer and they don't think of it as a program, they think of it as 'the internet'. They use MSN search because it's what 'the internet' sends them to. When I show them mozilla and google, they're usually very receptive, and in many cases I've shown these things to people that did not know anything about them before.
They have some, yes, but they don't pose as regular search results, let alone posing as the entire first page of the search results with a misleading line at the bottom implying that there is only one more search result instead of thousands either.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Here's an interesting one... try searching for 'Linux' on msn. 300 odd hits, right? Now try searching for 'Linux sucks'... Whoa....!
The Enquirer completely missed the real story. Try searching on more specific terms:
:)
google.com.au:
'Microsoft Windows' ~= 7,560,000
'Debian Linux' ~= 3,900,000
search.msn.com:
'Debian Linux' ~= 793,659
'Microsoft Windows' ~= 713 (!)
This demonstrates the opposite of the kind of bias The Enquirer was alleging...
Is Microsoft limiting Windows search results to only 'approved pages'? How can there be only 700 pages dealing with Microsoft Windows? Unless they're truly *ridiculously* incompetent, which I don't buy. Or unless they are losing some serious market share to Debian!
Now there's a happy thought.
Reading the above and looking at some of the searches I was leaning towards thinking that the search results were just bad, NOT intentionally misrepresented. But then I did an MSN search for "internet search" and "search engine" and in both cases had to go through to the 3rd or 4th page before I got a link to google. That was well past the "featured sites" list. But at least google made it to the top of the list when I searched "google"! I guess they decided they could only hide so much...
Go to MSN and do a search on "bill gates sucks cock" with the quotation marks. Google provides five hits. MSN only provides three:
:: K12 Open Source in Schools
1. K12OS
2. Slashdot | IP Theft in the Linux Kernel
3. Microsoft Corporation
And the results in:
Results 1-15 of about 916195 containing "FreeBSD"
Results 1-15 of about 251143 containing "OpenBSD"
Results 1-15 of about 190918 containing "NetBSD"
Results 1-15 of about 2373 containing "Windows"
Results 1-15 of about 365 containing "Linux"
According to MSN: All BSDs are clear winners in this competition. FreeBSD is supreme leader, way ahead of both Windows and Linux. What did netcraft have to say about this.......?
One other interesting fact, that no one seems to have mentioned - the search seems to be somewhat case sensitive - check out the different results:
Results 1-15 of about 916195 containing "FreeBSD"
Results 1-15 of about 1129745 containing "freebsd"
Saying your OS is the best because more people use it is like saying MacDonalds make the best food
MS Might only Index IIS Servers :)
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
That's still 15 too many search results to qualify.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
There's even worse: Make a search for google on msn, you get search.msn.com in the 3rd position!
google by MSN
I think they are so dumb that they will be out of business in 10/15 years, in dispite of their billions.
...unless you really believe 8,898,833 pages is "about 16."
Clearly, you seem to forget that 16 = 8,898,833 for Extremely Large Values of 16.
I also just noticed that the number MSN gives is misleading. I searched for Leonid Meteor Shower on MSN and it said 35 results, but when I got past 35 it says 10566 results. A Flyer made last year made result number 159 - Leonid Meteor Shower: MeteorStorm! ;(
http://www.starryskies.com/leonids is listed as result 229.
Google yields 33,900 results, and our page is number 25.
http://starryskies.com/The_sky/events/meteors/
Yahoo found 22,300 and our page is number 9 there.
Given our problems trying to get some of our better pages listed on Yahoo's directory, they want $300 per submission now, I was a bit surprised to see we are listed there and did well in this search ranking.
Anyone have any tips on a better way to determine search engine ranking?
We never have bothered with these search engine submission services, they just seemed like a rip off.
Chuck
Comment removed based on user account deletion
xxx -membership -"join now" -visa -mastercard
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
This would fall in line with the security-as-PR campaign. MS has been fighting to prevent further discussion or disclosure of problems in order to prevent all-out panic from end users as it goes over to monthly patching. Since there have been several indications that it wishes to show a short turn around time, the easiest way is to delay the announcement of the bug / hole/ flaw. Since the present is under attack, it would only make sense to revise the past.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Modded as flamebait, huh? Some Linux zealot's a bit uneasy with views and facts that counter their own I see.
I'm not exactly shocked.
Now THAT'S flamebait!
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
Now, I am a linux fan and anti-microsoft, but please get your article to compare apples with apples and not apples with oranges...
The two search engines treat the search string windows linux completely differently.
For MSN, try "windows or linux" (without quotes) and you will get your near 8 million...
Karem
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
for just the word linux came up with only 443 results. I am sure this is just a coincidence and has nothing to do with a bias or anything.
ZERO ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ONE! Just brushing up for my next big invention: Ethernet over Voice (EoV)
The flamebait mod was metamodded "unfair".
In Soviet America the banks rob you!