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MSN Rolling Out New Search Engine In July
X writes "Looks like Microsoft is going to release its new search technology soon. The online search world is about to get very interesting...." July launch; looks like they will continue to use Overture for a while, but the competition for dollars and users will definitely heat up.
Google has been pushed into the common vocabulary, like Hoover has for vacuum cleaners and Coke has for soft drinks. It has mind share, and a lot of it.
Google will always reign supreme, definitely.
I'm amazing. You aren't. SUCK IT
So what new feature is Google planning this time, then?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
will anybody ever say, "Let me MSN search that"
Too many zeros, not enough ones
Just like the Roman and British Empires, IBM, Netscape, East India Company, and all the other things this exact idiotic comment was made about.
The safest way to approach lava is to have another person with you and he goes first.
This kind of brings up some interesting questions --
What happens when/if someone develops a search engine that really is better (gasp! horror!) than Google? Will people still continue to use Google because it's entrenched in their brains? Will people say Google and mean another search engine?
Depends on how they implement it. If they integrate it into IE, which is of course "inseparable from Windows", then yes.
If they make it the default home page, maybe, but that's a little grey.
If they make it a web-based search engine similar to google, and have no special references to it in Windows, no.
What ticks me off about this is that microsoft will deffinately put this as the default search EVERYWHERE in Windows. How many people do you know use Internet Explorer? Sure there are many other better options out there, but nobody cares for these because the majority of web surfers just use what is on the OS. This is why IE is so big, and unfortunately, it will probably transend to search engines as well.
-- johntracy.com, because everybody else is wrong.
Wasn't there a time when searching for Linux gave really stupid Microsoft-related results?
Too many zeros, not enough ones
Users came to Google for the clean interface and stayed for the consistant results. I have known so many people who just use their search engine of choice through habit and never ever think to change. I'm sure we all can think of people who stubbornly cling to obscure legacy search engines like dogpile or even msn search (shiver)...
These are the people who just use msn or aol default search tool, and then discover that it is not working for them. Sooner or later they eventually find their way to Google; what would ever make them leave?
Casual internet users don't switch search engines out of curiosity. They have work to do and want answers fast. A new search offering would have to offer a simple, clean, easy to learn interface and consitantly great results to ever usurp Google. Or they could give away free money...
My (very) simple take on Google - the main search page is small and light and loads incredibly quickly (even while I'm saturating wor...err, my connection with por...uhh, linux binaries). The page has never really changed that much and is very familiar, but the technology behind the page is constantly being tweaked. Of course, (fair) competition is almost always a good thing.
Google will always reign supreme, definitely.
I don't think anything is definite - Google has a clear head start, but I don't think even Google are invincible. This will be a very interesting space to watch, indeed...
The Mothership
Could happen. Just like people say Kleenex when they mean a tissue and Aspirin when they mean ASA? Both are brand names but they're not used that way anymore. I can see the same happening to Google.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Excuse me, I am sure I must be mistaken, but interesting is hardly the word i would use to describe this. What would be interesting to me? A free, non-profit, search engine. Not funded by advertising. It would sort of be like the PBS of the of the WWW.
If I search for anything, pretty much the first hits are going to include Amazon.com advertising books about the subject. Doesn't this defeat the purpose of the web? I would like to see only the online information which is A) free (as in dollar bills) to access and B) actually acurate (ie, not written by jr. highschool history classes which leave out all of the details and most of the actual facts).
Honestly, if it would also search articles in magazines and scientific/trade journals, and give me access to the full text, i may even be willing to actually PAY for the service. Something like, $10-$15 per month, even. This would greatly enhance the productivity of unversity students and professors.
I mean we've heard it before and I'm starting to believe it -- Google is dying. When you're the top search engine out there, people start wanting to make a living spamming, scamming, and (google)bombing the algorithm just so they show up first.
Continuing to improve is a must. That doesn't necessarily mean expanding to blogging and giving away free e-mails and stuff. Just give me the appropriate results to my searches, separate the ads from (informative) content, and keep things as simple as possible. It's tough when everyone's gunning for you, but you can't sit still -- the search engine war should be won by the engine that gives the best results.
Google -- I'm pulling for you. I really am. Don't Netscape your way into oblivion, please. Yahoo will likely compete on merit. MS will play "default with OS" against you. I really hope you'll make it out ahead.
As can be seen here, a search for litigious bastards brings Microsoft's pet puppets up at the top of the result list ;-)
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
This alone will sink it:
Redetzki said MSN will list three paid listings at the top of every search result, of which at least two will be advertisements sold directly by MSN.
People don't want the search results to come in 4th on the list -- they want it at the top.
Also, I found this quote to be sort of funny:
"We're really close to finding out what really strikes consumers as the most relevant search results," said Karen Redetzki, an MSN product manager.
They don't know, but they're really close to finding out what consumers want. Even the word "consumers" says a lot about their mindset. We're just there to buy stuff.
99/100 of my google searches don't have anything to do with buying stuff. But when I do want to buy something, I use google because it's the engine I'm used to.
MS will probably make a lot of money, because a lot of people don't know any better. I've been installing the google toolbar for people, because it blocks pop-ups, and about half of the people who have gotten it from me say that their searches have improved a lot because they've started to use google.
I had assumed that everyone was already using google, but the comments I've gotten suggest that isn't the case.
But google is the company that's driving the industry. They're the people who worked out the best way for an engine to work. MS isn't bringing anything new to the table, fundamentally, other than an ability to use their software to drive people to their site.
They're saying, basically, let's copy google to a large extent, except for a small number of changes that will make the site worse (ie., putting paid links at the top of the page instead of just over on the side), and use our position as a software vendor to drive traffic to our search engine.
"We're really close to finding out what really strikes consumers as the most relevant search results," said Karen Redetzki, an MSN product manager.
Tranalation: After several years of weekly strategy meetings with high-paid analysts and consultants we have discovered that people do not, in fact, want advertisements to be displayed with search results.
~Tirinal
I hate MS as much as the next guy. But they can't exactly just set this as the default in IE and win the war like the majority of posters seem to be saying.
Why not? They've done it with media player, IE, etc etc. Well they can't because they've been doing it for over 6yrs already and google rose to the top with MSN search as the default homepage and search in IE already!
Install IE, open the browser, up pops the MSN search page. You think just because they make a new search engine and start pointing to it as the default rather than MSN it's going to suddenly kill google?
I might have agreed 6yrs ago, but now having seen that at no time since they made it the default page with IE 4 in win98 has MSN EVER been the top search engine.. I'm afraid history has already shown otherwise sorry guys.
Lets talk about how they cleaned up the search results for Xfree86 and linux and such before making this announcement (check em) and how they will undoubtedly bring the scewed results back if they succeed and become top search dog.
From: http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blasp irin.htm
The folks at Bayer came up with the name Aspirin, it comes from the 'A" in acetyl chloride, the "spir" in spiraea ulmaria (the plant they derived the salicylic acid from) and the 'in' was a then familiar name ending for medicines.
Aspirin was first sold as a powder. In 1915, the first Aspirin tablets were made. Interestingly, Aspirin (R) and Heroin (R) were once trademarks belonging to Bayer. After Germany lost World War I, Bayer was forced to give up both trademarks as part of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
Let's take a look at some of the primary factors that will come into play when running a server farm for web-spidering purposes:
Operating System:
Google runs a strpped-down linux kernel specifically tweaked to facilitate two tasks: crawling web pages and returning search engine results. Assuming that Microsoft eats their own dog food, they will either run their own bloated Server 2003, or they'll come up with a customized windows installation with a bunch of the extraneous crap excluded. Edge: Most likely Google.
Hardware:
Microsoft has the revenue stream to build server farms of mammoth porportions, and they have multiple sites across which they can distribute their spider farms at little to no additional cost. On the other hand, if Micorosft serves its searches off of an unmodified 2003 kernel, they'll need much more in the way of hardware resources than Google will. OTOH, Google has by and large rewritten the book on maximizing the efficiency of the systems that serve up searches. They also have incrementally more experience trending hardware utilization for a high-volume search engine than Microsoft. Edge: Most likely Google.
System Administration:
If google rewrote the book efficient utilization of resources on search engines, they wrote the book on system administration of a high volume search engine completely from scratch. With their incredibly low ratio of sysadmins to supported systems, Google has a head start on running a sustainable operation than Microsoft. OTOH, MS has the extra hands to throw at this endeavor, and it's possible that they could use tools like Windows Services for Unix and Windows Scripting host to automate sysadmin tasks on their servers much like google did. What will factor in the most here is the internal politics at Redmond. If the busness center responsible for SMS decides that this needs to be a case study on SMS deployment, than Microsoft will surely fail on this objective. If on the other hand they avoid SMS like the plague, then they'll be in better shape, but again they'll be trying to reinvent the wheel while google is already racing around on radials with phat 20" rims and neon lights. Edge: Most likely Google.
System Security:
It will be interesting to see how the new MSN will be impacted by the next blaster worm. This search engine will have one of the biggest sets of crosshairs in the world painted all over it, and it will be interesting to see how the next IIS vulnerability is handled. Look for a mysterious outage at about the same time as a new vulnerability is discovered, or look for a vulnerability that affects everyone running IIS, except for the servers running MSN. Edge: Google.
Integrity of Searches:
Here, google outshines Microsoft. While google has had its share of search engine results controversies, I don't see how Microsoft will be able to risk the temptation of tampering with search engine results. Both companies have very clear agendas. Microsoft's agenda is to push Microsoft products and line Microsoft pockets, while Google's agenda is to provide a low-overhead search engine while providing the best possible user experience. Edge: Most certainly Google.
At the end of the day, there are two benefits we are likely to see. One of them is competition driving down the price of paid search engine advertisements. The other is whatever OS customization, system management, and automation techniques Microsoft cooks up in the process of building and maintaining the server farms. If Microsoft chooses to share this info, then Windows administrators can better secure their machines, and the Internet becomes a safer place. If not, then at least there's the chance that Microsoft's ludicrous claims about them having a shorter window from vulnerability discovery to patch availability than Linux can be shattered.
Yes, my only tool is a hammer. And you're starting to look like a nail.