Microsoft Introduces Competition For Google News

Romeo E. Cabrera writes "In advance of an imminent launch of its own search engine, Microsoft has launched its own version of the popular Google News service. Based initially on feeds from the Moreover news aggregation service, the new beta service (known as MSN Newsbot) aims to provide news on a range of subjects including World, Sports, Entertainment, Science and Technology."

Comments

Paranoid? Maybe not..

[grub]

TinFoilHat time:
I imagine any news that is negative to MS' bottom line will be relegated to the back of the bus, much like Linux search results in MSN's search. Thanks, but I'll use a news engine from a company with in interest in cool tech, not spinning the news to appease stockholders.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[ironfrost]

It looks like you might have a point - at the moment, the second and third highest ranked articles are about Microsoft themselves.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[TopShelf]

Well, give them a bit of credit. The most prominent story in the Tech department is Sun's plan to partner with AMD and offer Wintel alternatives...

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[mcpkaaos]

much like Linux search results in MSN's search

Didn't we just dispel that myth about a week ago, when showing that beyond MSN's initial page(s) of sponsored links, Linux search results thrived in massive numbers? A search for "linux" on MSN returns 440 sponsored links, most of which are legitimate linux sites. Going beyond that list yields over 15 million additional results. I know that doesn't compare to Google, but that's like apples to oranges. Google is a far superior search engine/service by its own merit. Linux.org is #4 on the first page of results, by the way (even though it is beneath that site about migrating away from linux over to Microsoft, lol).

I know that we can't expect Microsoft to roll out the red carpet for negative news about themselves too often, or even positive news for alternative products, but can we please stop with the paranoia? I think they've demonstrated that while they are in fact petty, they aren't quite that petty.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[fafaforza]

It is interesting that the newsbot looks so much like Google's news page that it even sports the "(beta)" disclaimer.

Has miscrosoft ever released public products or services that were labeled beta? From my memory, everything they produced was the most complete, functional, secure and final solution around.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[kiwimate]

Gosh...you don't think that might be because they've only just opened it up and so the vast majority of the site's users up until now would have been internal Microsoft people?

As I look now, a few minutes after the /. story appeared, that's already changing. Number 1 is about Microsoft, and number 2 is about a murder suspect in the UK.

How's this for a test? Everyone on /., go and visit the Tech News Site and click on the Red Hat subscriptions surge article and see how quickly it moves up.

Or, even better, come back to the site after a couple of days and see how it's changed. Then, reevaluate on the basis of some actually vaguely accurate data! Going against the whole rationale of /., I know, but you never know, it might work.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[marauder404]

Did you even try running a search? Their site tends to return Sponsored Sites, Featured Sites, and then whole sites dedicated to your query. Only then are individual pages listed. The difference is sites vs. pages. The second page of results are not second-tier, but just individual pages. The intent is obvious: ads to pay for the site, then whole websites dedicated to your query, and then individual pages. For very generic queries like Linux, it's probably better to find a whole site that's a Linux authority rather than an individual page that talks about Linux a lot. You might not like the system, and that's fine, but to say that it's skewing results to favor a competitive business agenda is completely different.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[1010011010]

Click on this (Redhat article):
http://g.msn.com/0PNENGB/1?http://c.moreover.com/c lick/here.pl?z103279857&z=237487

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Dorothy 86]

At the risk of being troll or falimbait; Microsoft is pissing me off. Every day I come to /. and I see some new story about how Microsoft is ripping ideas off of everyone else. Their MSN music service coming out, this news thing, their "matrix" shot at linux, its just rediculous. Perhaps if MS would come up with some actual innovation, other than new marketing techniques, they could actually have a good product. They have a good start, and given a little time with some good programmers, it could be a "secure" (as secure as anything really can be anyways) solution to many people's computer problems. As it is, more often than not it only compounds those problems. I lost faith in the "American System" long ago, and MS is only making cynics of more and more people. Why is it, that a company with as much power as they have (reguardless of whether or not you want to admit it) does all it can to belch out mediocre software? It takes money to make money, they say; and appearantly that money only spawns the want of more money. Call me prude, old-fasioned, whaever, but a company such as microsoft, with such a huge impact on the lives of many people, should at least try to put out something that is useful, and not allready available.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Microsoft news...

The news source you anti-trust.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[eaolson]

Now, this analysis may not be fair, because this is a new service and so may not have as much historical information as Google, but:

• "microsoft monopoly"
• • Google: 572 hits
  • MSN Newsbot: 142 hits
• "microsoft anti-trust"
• • Google: 1600 hits
  • MSN Newsbot: 50 hits
• "matrix" (for something not Microsoft related)
• • Google: 3910 hits
  • MSN Newsbot: 999 hits [*]
• "putnam scandal" (again, for something not Microsoft or tech related)
• • Google: 2000 hits
  • MSN Newsbot: 678 hits [*]

[*] The Newsbot hit-counter seems to pin at 999, so this may just reflect "some number greater than 1000."

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[BlowChunx]

IBM once held a monopoly. Then Microsoft got 'em.

Now Microsoft has a monopoly and the inertia will eventually kill them. My only question is, can I pick the stock of the next contender to the throne? That my friend is the American way.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[RALE007]

IBM once held a monopoly. Then Microsoft got 'em.

Now Microsoft has a monopoly and the inertia will eventually kill them. My only question is, can I pick the stock of the next contender to the throne? That my friend is the American way.

What's interesting is IBM lost its PC monopoly because of the openness of the hardware. I think it would be rather ironic if MS loses their monopoly because the, albeit different, open architecture of OSS.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

There is no such thing as an American system. You either have capitalism or you don't. Capitalists, needless to say, don't hold allegiance to countries (in fact, they are the first ones to sell out their countries and move to tax sheltered countries like Bahamas or Monaco :| ). Yes, people have the habit of blaming a country. Under capitalism, the corporations are free to move around and do whatever they want. Microsoft, or for that matter any other company, can move to China tomorrow. Besides, the ownership of the company may be foreigners. Many large corporations are inter-listed on other stock exchanges and many foreigners own them.

Anyway, MS DOES innovate. They DO take ideas from others but they make a better product out of it. Why is MS Office so popular? Wordperfect and Lotus had a headstart but couldn't keep up. How come SQL Server is eating up marketshare? It came out of nowhere. Watch X-Box capture market share (I think Nintendo won't release a next version and Sony may have problems). If MS sucks at innovation, why is Visual Studio offer more features and capabilities than any of its competition?

Look at the Linux world. Most of the open-source software(OSS) are clones of existing stuff. The vast majority of OSS software copy Unix or Windows. Why is KDE/X (or Gnome for the rest of you ;) ) lagging Windows? For example, Longhorn (next version is windows) is supposed to use 3D card capabilities (at least that's the "rumour"). I don'tsee KDE doing anything like that in its future version. Why is OpenOffice.org (OOo) lagging everything? Right now,OOo is just copying MS Office and isn't really doing anything innovative or new.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[DotNetGuru]

It seems like that was a good part of your message:

At the risk of being troll or falimbait; Microsoft is pissing me off. Every day I come to /. and I see some new story about how Microsoft is ripping ideas off of everyone else. Their MSN music service coming out, this news thing, their "matrix" shot at linux, its just rediculous. Perhaps if MS would come up with some actual innovation, other than new marketing techniques, they could actually have a good product.

That being said, I'll get responding to the point you say you were trying to make, and this post. As you said yourself, they "have a good start". But you seem to be under the impression that Microsoft's software is stagnant and that it's not improving.

The only issue you call out specifically is security. Microsoft HAS improved on that (compare Server2k3 w/ Server2k exploit rates, for example) and is still doing more. Security asise if you just look at what Microsoft has done over time (95->98->XP) there have been significant improvements in both UI (The original 95's UI sucks ass out of the box) and stability (the former traditional Microsoft sucks rallying point; these days it's security). I also find it extremely interesting that typically there is "one big thing" Microsoft gets slammed for at a time. And I say if your detractors can only find one major (where major=encompassing design flaws) bad thing about your products you're doing pretty good.

You also say you "would like to see augmentations to their existing software, instead of making new software to get more money." I just don't understand what the difference is. Microsoft adds new stuff to their software to sell more copies. If they don't then people won't upgrade. There's still a large amount of people using Win 98 (~30% I belive last time I looked at Google's stats, and it was about equal to XP). Apparently XP wasn't compelling enough for them to upgrade. So they're continuing to add new stuff. But it's not like during this time period Microsoft doesn't refine their existing products. Win98 is still supported today and gets patches. What other desktop operating systems still support the version released in 98? I don't think it's Apple, and I don't think it's any of the Linux vendors, and I know it's not Be.

So can MS's software improve? Sure, and I think they wouldn't disagree. But is it really just "good enough"? There are markets (IBM seems to think information worker is one of them) where Microsoft rules. Really no one can touch them: not Linux, not MacOS w/ a non-MS office suite. And while some of that may be interoperability, a lot of it is the staggering amount of functionality that Office brings to the table. Even slashdoters will quote areas where there's no compelling alternative. So I'm not so sure it's mediocre. But like everything it can certainly improve, after all, nothing is perfect.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[kindofblue]

I don't think it was openness alone, but that they gave Microsoft exclusive rights to DOS for the clones. Then all the clones ran with the same MS-DOS, which was nearly identical to IBM's PC-DOS variant. So Microsoft got the software profits on the clones. It was a very, very smart move. I don't think that many big companies would have anticipated the consequences, given that Microsoft was a tiny company selling Basic.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[HiThere]

True. They probably aren't *currently* skewing results to favor a competitive business agenda . But their standard approach is to start out with something decent, build it into something good. And then use it to abuse or mislead the users, preferably without their noticing it. I'd rather just skip that whole operation.

Oddly Enough...

[Jaysyn]

.. I doubt many here care. Just annother "innovation" from MicroSoft.

Jaysyn

Re:Oddly Enough...

[Frymaster]

Just annother "innovation" from MicroSoft.

too true. microsoft has talked a lot recently about how their committed to innovation. and yet, their two most recent releases:

1. a news service "like google's"
2. an online music store "like apple's"

Re:Oddly Enough...

[Mr_Silver]

microsoft has talked a lot recently about how their committed to innovation.

Personally I don't care whether or not a company has innovated in the "here's something totally new that you've never seen before" - if they can take something and make it better, then I (as a punter) will chose it.

To innovate doesn't have to have the pre-requsit of "start from scratch". It's perfectly possible to take something that isn't particulary new and then add new features and claim that to be innovative.

Other companies in all markets have been doing that for years. It's not something limited to Microsoft.

Re:Oddly Enough...

[Frymaster]

don't care whether or not a company has innovated in the "here's something totally new that you've never seen before"

you may not care, but microsoft does. remember that recent interview where balmer said that linux was "not innovative" because it was just "a clone of unix"?

ms has set their own definition of innovation. and they aren't living up to it.

Re:Oddly Enough...

[advocate_one]

so we're all waiting for "innovation" number 3...

3. A secure Operating System "like Linux"...

Re:Oddly Enough...

[marauder404]

Don't confuse innovation with invention. Let's see what they bring to the table when these services are in full swing to see how they've innovated on an existing concept to make it better for the consumer, industry, or their own bottom line. Any one of these, among others, would make it an innovation.

As long as it is not the same stuff

[Popadopolis]

As long as it is not exacltly the same news on other sites (like Google), I would be willing to give it a try. I find too much recycled news on the internet these days, and it would be nice to have something new. Of course, if it is the same news over and over again (or blatently Microsoft propeganda), then it isnt worth the bother.

Re:As long as it is not the same stuff

[h4rm0ny]

This is a little off-topic I admit, but I'll risk the Karma because it might be of interest to a few people here seeing as a lot of /.'s have such strong political views.

I subscribe to Stratfor. It's a paid for service geared towards investors and company strategists and it provides some of the best international and political news you'll ever find. It's cheap enough that I subscribe privately and you can guarentee that it isn't full of propaganda. Why? Because it's used by people with money and whatever news corps tell the masses, the stock market has the right connections to know what's really going down.

Now please don't hammer my karma for trying to be helpful.

Headlines on MS' News:

[pheared]

"Does Linux cause cancer? Find out at MSnewsbot.com. ... Bill Gates: Terrific Dancer. ... Dow down 5000 points. ... Study: 92 percent of Linux users are gay.. ... Oil slicks found to keep penguins young, supple. ... Steve Ballmer: Awesome."

hmm

[oZZoZZ]

It's a total rip off of google, so i see no reason to use it... but when I first went to check it out, i noticed 1 story at the top of technology, with the headline:
"Tapping into the growing interest to Wintel computers"
At least they're not censoring the news.... yet =)

Impartiality

[harks]

I wonder if they will be as impartial as the Google news generator. The first two "most popular" articles on their service are the same one: Microsoft Tests Web News Service

Re:Impartiality

[terraformer]

Hopefully they will be as impartial through the use of automation, which is where google gets it's impartiality from.
The more important thing here is this may push google to drop the "our news site is an experimental beta test which can be dropped at any time" attitude and start to really pour some resources in. One thing about competition is that it will help hone the product and google's news site has not really changed since it's inception a while back. I was hoping for some interface tweaks and other enhancements that could make it the killer web app.

MSN Newsbot Technology Headlines

[Noryungi]

As seen recently:

• New Linux security vulnerabilities.
• SCO receives a large new infusion of cash from partner Microsoft.
• Exclusive Ballmer/Gates Matrix spoof, now in THX and Dolby Digital Surround!
• Foobar Software is named "Innovative Windows Software of the Year" by Bill Gates.

Etc... Etc... Etc...

(All this is said firmly tongue-in-cheek, of course...) ;-)

Wow, looks A LOT like Google news

[Predathar]

Anyone else notice this? Almost same layout, the time generated at the top right, the menu on the left. step 1. Find good site/idea step 2. COPY AND PASTE step 3. ???? step 4. profit

Re:Wow, looks A LOT like Google news

[Orien]

step 1. Find good site/idea step 2. COPY AND PASTE step 3. ???? step 4. profit

Step 5.
Figure out how to
do an html page
break.

Define "based on"

[FelixCat]

Wow, just imagine what MS will do with a news feed.

The whole power of the google news is that it is machine generated, and not directly controlled by a human. Remember that MS search engine is "based on" information found on the internet, but if you search for many well known things like say "linux windows" you get far different results than from other search engines (e.g. Google).

Just imagine once they start putting the same filter on the news feeds! I can't wait to see what sort of bias is introduced.

What about MSNBC???

[RobertAG]

Wasn't a REAL news website good enough? Now they have to be in competition with THEMSELVES?

At first glance I thought it was a new place to search usenet news. This new "news site" is just plain worthless. It reminds me of the USAToday site.

Re:What about MSNBC???

[nsebban]

All of MSNBC's content is produces by NBC's journalists...MS only provides technical part.

Biased? Microsoft?

[captainclever]

Most Popular Articles:

1. Microsoft tests Web news service ZDNet Full coverage...
2. Microsoft tests Web news service DoubleClick Full coverage...

'Course not ;)

Comparing font pages

[edalytical]

MSN Newsbot: Michael Jackson 'to be arrested'

Google News: Radio Netherlands British Newspaper Claims Security Breach at Buckingham Palace

One of these is not news can you guess which one?

Still using google

[BondGamer]

I am still going to use google. It is a nice quick way to see the day's major events for technology and business. It works and is very orgnaized. Better to encourage the orginal creator to create more then to encourage the copier to copy more.

Trustworthy News Reporting?

[Ridgelift]

Quote: According to MSN, by tracking the interests of users of the site it can determine which stories are most popular and suggest stories that users want to follow based on the patterns of other users.

Great, now Microsoft can collect information on me without having to sneak around. "Your honor, Mr. Public asked us to track his every move when he was forced...UH...opted-in to MSN Newsbot". Of course, they'd _never_ use the information they gather for marketing purposes (ouch! my tongue is wedged into my cheek!)

Quote: Users of MSN Passport can get personalised news depending on their interest during past visits. When logging in to Passport, MSN Newsbot displays news from sources you've chosen in the past.

Passport users? Oh, you mean everyone who uses XP because of that annoying bubble that keeps pestering you to sign-up until you do.

So now I can read all the favourable press on Microsoft, have all my activity tracked and the rest of my privacy compromised so I can have super-specific product advisement beamed right into brain. Gotta hand it to you, Bill, your vast fortunes are eclipsed only by your ability to me, John Q. Public, exactly what I want (ouch! My cheek!)

Why google is better

[Docrates]

The reason I use google news very frequently is simple: they dig out news that I wouldn't find through casual news surfing on the traditional sites. Mostly international news which I DO care about, local news of a lot of cities and stuff that's just interesting and not tired and exploited (I wouldn't sit through a news story of the Peterson case even if they paid me!)

I don't see Microsoft matching that for the simple reason that MS is in it for the ads, the traffic and the money, while Google (when it comes to news at least) is doing it because they can and makes them look good (it's more a technological showroom than a add based news service. In fact, they don't sell advertising in that page)

I compared

[savaget]

I did a comparison of both by searching my hometown(in Canada).
The MS got 8 hits while Google got 21. The main difference here seems that Google hits were sourced from newspaper web pages and MS hits came mostly from newswire services.

Litmus test

[cyranoVR]

"Linux Windows" on newsbot.msn.com = 717 stories
First headlines:
Sun Micro Signs China Desktop Linux Software Deal (Reuters)
Leader: Comdex reflects harsh IT realities (Silicon.com)
Brown defends Blair relationship (?? Guardian Unlimited)

"Linux Windows" on news.google.com = ~1,800 stories
First headlines:
Intel intros hyperthreading compilers for Linux, Windows (The Inquirer, UK)
Linux-Windows file access (Linuxworld)
An editor to ease Windows to Linux migration (Newsforge)

Interesting comparison...

[Theaetetus]

MSN's tech page here has no mention of the #2 story on the Tech section of Google: Apple unveils new products for the holidays.

As we saw with MSN's competing search engine, there seems to be some bias in the results...

-T

Of course you realize...

[MyDixieWrecked]

that M$ has just made back their investment solely from advertising income from the slashdotting.

Must we help the borg?!

Re:Of course you realize...

[SkArcher]

don't be daft, you don't think anyone on /. actually reads the goddamn articles do you? Sheesh @_@

(laugh. its funny)

And it'll be integrated with next IE...

[Urkki]

...so when average user uses the net, he will automatically use MS services, unless he goes to the Special-dialog in the Advanced-tab in some obscure settings windows...

It's really a bit like TV makers would have their own TV channels where they would show content made by themselves, and TV sets of their make would only display those channels... Oh, and using a microwave oven that could heat your standard TV dinner would require having their TV set as well or the result would look all funky.

Suprise Suprise

[KJE]

Some of the jokes aren't far off.

Check out what 2 out of the top 5 "Most Popular Articles" are:

• Microsoft tests Web news service ZDNet Full coverage...
• Huntley 'said he was last person to see girls alive' Guardian Unlimited Full coverage...
• Microsoft tests Web news service DoubleClick Full coverage...
• Busted crash to the top BBC Full coverage...
• Attack helicopters worth GBP1.2bn will lie idle for years Independent Full coverage...

Slashdot on MSN Newsbot?

[GillBates0]

I've noticed that GoogleNews routinely carries headlines from /.

For example the latest SCO story links to the /. headline as one of the sources.

On the other hand, the same story on MSN NEWSbot does not provide a link to the /. headline.

But then, Google News lists 66 sources for the same story, while MSNNewsBot links to about 10, so it's hard to say if they're intentionally boycotting our popular Anti-MS site.

I would really love to see their news site regularly updated with /.'s Microsoft headlines :) That'll be fun to watch

MSN Newsbot

[Ridgelift]

"News flash: Linux Usage Causes Impotence ... Windows 2003 brings hope and prosperity to third-world contries ... Linus Torvalds: Subversive Fascist, or Raging Red Communist? ... Study shows Childen who use MICROSOFT products are smarter than their stupid peers ... MSN Newsbot Causes Correction in Polar Ice-Caps ...

Warning: SQL error: [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]
Line 1: Massive Internal Server Hemmorage ','., SQL state 37000 in SQLExecDirect in
E:\Inetpub\wwwroot\nip-sundown\include\php\dat abas e.php on line 26

second to the punch

[jest3r]

M$ launches news service
M$ launches new search engine
M$ launches music download servive

it seems like M$ is scrambling a little bit, not quite sure what to do anymore. coming to the market second or third works when you can leverage your existing user-base in a controlled environment (think IE or Office).

the trouble is the internet is not really a controlled environment like their os. even with a browser monopoly M$ hasn't really figured out what to do online .. the only success they have achieved thus far is by buying existing leaders (think HotMail).

so as far as I am concerned as long as M$ is mired up trying to develop their own online services in-house the world is safe.

Anyone question why...

[Cytlid]

... it's only in the uk? Maybe I missed something? I am a huge fan of google news. I am not a fan of MS and their divisions. But I will give it a try. It still bothers me... why only in the uk? Would others tend to trust this more? Isn't most of Europe really critical of MS and their monopolistic behavior?

I think I'll try it for a week and see what happens. Reading a few of the other posts here, we can't tell if it's truely biased or not, but also, we probably shoulnd't judge until we've seen repeating patterns. Most folks here *know* what to expect from google, and slashdot, and other news sources. And we can, for the most part we can trust google to be non-biased.

Let's see how this goes...

Re:Anyone question why...

[romcabrera]

Almost every beta page released my M$, is introduced first in Microsoft UK.

Who cares?

[neiffer]

So, I looked at the NewsBot site and I suppose it's swell, but I still like GoogleNews better. Why? Maybe because deep inside I like Google and their business model better. I think Microsoft, who is not really loved among the masses (and I am a Windows user; I like XP although I use OpenOffice instead of Office XP/'03) doesn't really do much for itself when it slaps its brand on a product. Also, I have to wonder if MSN will make the classic mistake of making it overbloated like the rest of its sites. I see that now there is no advertising on it but when will that change? Also, I see the cheesie MSN banner on it. When will MSN start forcing you to sign into passport or worse Hotmail (gag) to get the news. Google is simple. Low bandwith (with an option for lower bandwidth yet if you want). There is no advertising on the news page. There is no need to sign into the collective.

Specialized News Aggregate Sites

[syr]

Google News and the UK version of MSN News (forthcoming in the US I'm sure) are very useful sites, no doubt. However, because they are generic news outlets they lack the ability to truly specialize in any given area of news.

If Google or Microsoft wished to truly compete in one segment (sports, politics, videogames, etc.) they would have to hire editors to manage those sections and provide a personal touch as well as specialized features for those sections.

I am an Editor at GameTab which is in essence an aggregate site for videogame news and reviews. We are a portal site (much like the Google/MSN news sites) which means that we're trying to be a jumping point for gamers to venture out into other sites. We don't create news ourselves, we merely report what news other sites are presenting and do useful manipulation on the data. In addition we present relevant information such as price deals, developer and fan created box art, torrent files, etc.

For generic news these sites run by corporations are great. They are a strong challenge to outlets such as CNN or MSN.com itself. However, for the many areas of news people will always want that custom feel that they only receive when information is tailored specifically to their tastes.

As momma always said

[sielwolf]

Imitation is the sincerest form of Hostile Takover.

Is /, creating the bias?

[LostCluster]

This bias claim seems to be self-fulfilling.

See, it looks like they're judging headlines with a "popularity index" counting how many time users click stories. Since ./ is the only place this site seems to be loudly announced right now, we the Slashdot readers are biasing sampling, and clicking on the pro-MS and pro-SCO stories more than anything else and moving them to the top, then coming back here, yelling "Bias!", which drives more /.'s to the site... rinse. wash. repeat.

If this is right... think we could try to create some odd results as a group?

Re:Moreover.com?

[1u3hr]

Noting happens when I click on the links. On investigation. "c.moreover.com" is in my hosts file defined as 127.0.0.0, from a standard list of banner and popup spewing domains. So I feel disinclined to unalais it.

Also is it tacky to have a headline: "Michael Jackson 'to be arrested'" and below that an ad "Find Michael Jackson Items on eBay.co.uk", and more stupidly, if less offensively: "Airline Network: Cheap Travel to Jackson".

longhorn developers get a sneak peek...

[avi33]

...at some of the code that will drive this application.

if (section == technology) {
if strFound("linux", "J2EE") {
mod_down()
} elseif strFound(".NET") {
mod_up()
}
}

Good; Shop and Compare

[4of12]

I think it's good that Google has a competitor to keep them on their toes, honest, etc.

I'd be really curious to know if there is any implicit shading of news happening by use of different technology or explicit policy.

One way would be to do this comparison:

1. Use Google's search engine to look up URLs that are critical of Google, favorable to Google, etc. and compare to using MS search engine to lookup URLs that critical of Google, favorable to Google, etc.
2. Use MSN's search engine to lookup URLs that are critical of MSN, favorable to MSN, etc. and compare to Google using Google's search engine to look for, again, exactly the same topics.

This might also be done with regard to favorite wavelengths on the political spectrum, too, to see if there's any differences in returned results that indicate a different political weight (intentional or incidental, as the case may be.)

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN, THESE SITES ARE CRAP

[sixdotoh]

R O F L ... that was the point, einstein...

why why why, must i always get involved with AC's...

MS doesn't innovate anymore.

[bs_02_06_02]

Yahoo news has been pretty good for quite awhile. MS is doing nothing but trying to "keep up with the Joneses." Most newspaper sites do the same thing. They just don't pay for as many newsfeeds.

MS has some really brainy product people: "We need to do something."
"I can't think of anything."
"How about we copy google?"
"Too hard."
"Ok, how about we just copy parts of google?"
"Ok... news. We'll just aggregate."
"Cool... we'll just chip away at Google."
"We've got more money than god... they'll cave sooner or later."

MS buys a hundred Dell servers, hires a contractor to come in and set up the scripting. They hire 2 people to keep the 100 Dells running linux... I meant 50 people to keep the 100 Dell machines running Windows 2003.
MS starts issuing press releases before the contractor is ready. The advertising people have all of the Intel/MS cronies lined up for advertising spots. They start beating on the contractor when the site sucks.
MS starts reporting estimated revenue streams to Wall Street. Everyone is happy. The general public buys Windows XP, they aren't even asked if they'd like their default news page set to MS. It's just done.

Gooogle has News Alerts

[descil]

I don't know if google is ready to show this to the world yet, but it's in their labs, and most of you should already know about it anyway.

When MS comes out with a full version of this, I'll consider going to their site. Until then, I'll just read my email for news...

Google is teh r0x0r.

I agree, and checkout this search

[unassimilatible]

Do a search under "linus."

MSN

Google.

Interesting comparison

[wcbrown]

Google News search for "MSN Newsbot"

vs.

MSN Newsbot search for "Google News"

It's a very telling search that compares the two services rather nicely.

Why use MSN / Google news?

[Henk Poley]

Don't we have Memigo for this?

For the unknowing, Memigo is an intelligent news agent. It allows registered users to rate articles. High rated news items will come up on the regular frontpage. When you create a login yourself Memigo will 'learn' what news you like, and via collaborative filtering, others with similar tastes will recommend news items to you.

Definition...

[TWX]

"From my memory, everything they produced was the most complete, functional, secure and final solution around."

I guess that depends on your definition of "final solution"...

Re:Initial Pages are all that count

[mcpkaaos]

Heh, I remember you from a few days ago. I see you are still trying to make the same point. I guess we can go back into it, if you'd like. Buckle up!

For 90% of the population/market, the first couple of pages are all they look at.

If the first couple of pages are even close to 100% relevant to your search, then I bet you wouldn't look beyond them, either. Why would you? You found what you were looking for. If that's the case, then Microsoft would be accurate in their results, global domination conspiracy notwithstanding. However, if the initial results are insufficient, yet the seeker is, ahem, "manipulated" into viewing and accepting them... I'm sorry, I can't finish that thought, it's just too absurd. By your own words do you essentially call those people idiots. How could you possibly suggest that 90% of the population lack the wit or wisdom to look beyond search results that are not sufficient for their needs, while implying that a mere 10% are armed with the intelligence to say to themselves, "Hey, I was looking for Linux, not a migration path from MySQL to SQL Server!" and move on to the next result set? Unless you are going back to that whole *we* (your emphasis) are smarter than the average consumer nonsense?

When you control and manipulate those firsts few pages, you control public opinion.

I think you might want to ask the originator of this thread if you can borrow his tin-foil hat... if it fits.

More news is good news

[russotto]

And the best part about it is this is a new source of registration-not-required New York Times links.

Haven't you people ever seen MSNBC?

[CalCudahy]

Why is everyone here going nuts on the possibility of MS skewing the results? They've shown for years that they can co-run a news site that has plenty of room for anti-Microsoft and pro-linux stories. Has anyone made a serious claim about MSNBC not being impartial?

Pro-linux

Anti-microsoft

Wow

[Tuross]

I'm really thrilled by this.

Earlier this week, we saw Microsoft announce they were offering a online music service next year, kinda like what Apple are already offering now with iTunes and what the rest of the community have been doing with Napster et al for years.

They also did a spoof of the Matrix (the original), just like Borland did a while ago, and of course every man and his dog has since the original was released years ago.

And now they are introducing a news service just like Google's already perfectly good one.

What further "innovation" will we see from Redmond? I can hardly wait.

How little do you want to know today?

[Zhe Mappel]

So Microsoft is going to give us the "news," eh? And for free! How generous!

From an early age Americans are taught to consume news from corporations. Too few pause to ask, "What might these giant concerns wish me to learn today? What might they not?" As we see in just the past few years alone, our news industry is as content to serve as a conduit for profitable lies as was the Hearst empire back in its yellowest days. Did you know the sky's the limit for Enron stock, and that the minarets of Baghdad conceal nukes pointing at us?

For the descendents of the people who gave us luminous skeptics of power such as Twain, Bierce and Nast to suck at these monied teats is one thing. For them to suck their fill and think themselves "informed" is risibly quite another.

MOD PARENT DOWN

[Entropy248]

Of course a search for "Google News" turns up articles about MSNBot right now! There are hundreds of news articles about MSBot because of its more recent release! All of the recent articles about Google News compare it to MSNBot because it's obvious that since MS couldn't buy Google that Bill is going to try to compete with Google. Personally I think that rumor was a really distorted version of MS trying to either buy Google's news algorythm or buy Google NEWS outright since the price to gert instant access to all that information is probably pretty high. Pound for pound, nothing is more expensive than information.

A much better comparison is "Google News" on Google to "Google News" on MSNBot. MSNB actually returns more results, but the second page is completely useless. Accuracy counts too; I'll stick with Google News. [The link is for Cowboy Neil]