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MSN Search Roundup
Thomas Hawk writes "Well after almost 24 hours of public release, The Seattle Post Intelligencer seems to have the best round up on the professional opinions on the new MSN search beta. Bottom line seems to be that nobody is going to be switching over to MSN Search from Google anytime soon. The story includes opinions by
Walter Mossberg,
John Battelle,
The Wall Street Journal and others.
"
it has bugs, it is not ready, all that jazz, did I mention it was beta?
did you forget to take your meds?
... nobody is going to be switching over to MSN Search from Google anytime soon.
Not until the next Service Packs make it the default search engine, anyway.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
Shocking. Microsoft has never done that before. Seriously, where have you been since Windows 1.0?
UNIX/Linux Consulting
Noone needs to switch from Google. They just have to keep people from switching to Google.
MSN is the default homepage for a gajillion browsers out there. It just has to be good enough to keep them from looking for something different.
Besides, it's still a beta, and TFA says they won't replace much of the core searching until 2005.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Bottom line seems to be that nobody is going to be switching over to MSN Search from Google anytime soon.
The bottom line is not quite so overcast as this statement seems to imply. None were negative, but most mentioned that this is beta quality and had the potential to tackle google in the future.
Every search engine--not web portal--I can remember consisted of a search field surrounded by a couple of options. Alta Vista, Ask Jeeves, HotBot, Google. There's not much difference between any of them. What about the UI exactly do you mean?
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Once again Microsoft is just ripping-off someone elses product or idea and just remarketing it.
.net etc.
Its just the next in a long line of products they've just stolen, including Windows, Office, IE, C#,
Why don't they actually INNOVATE and create something from a new idea for once?
what will we see next? A trading website called mbay.com?
I am sick of this... Who needs a new search engine? Nobody! The web is so crammed with porn and crap that NO search engine can be "revolutionary". You only get more paid-for ads, or more intelligent ads-rotation... I will NOT use MSN's search, just because I am TIRED of searches... Google won that "war" long ago. Their interface is simple, their name is simple. Now, I got used to it, and if you offer me the same thing, with a different name, I just won't switch. MS, what about REAL innovation instead of copying everybody else -LATE-.
All you have to do is integrate it into the operating system and poof google goes away!
Got Code?
They will switch because some future version of IE will have a search bar that goes there, and most users will use whatever is provided for them. Sorry, but that is just the way it goes. The monopoly is simply too strong and the legal system is not fast enough or willing to actually punish them in a meaningful way.
Keeping in mind the past history of Microsoft products when stacked up against competitors...
Was MS Windows 1.0 better than an X-capable terminal? Or a similar GUI of that era?
I'll be interested to see how Microsoft's search offering stacks up against its competitors in twenty or more years down the road.
My point being that Microsoft's successes have come from the years of refining its products in a monopolistic environment, not from the initial offering. How will this product do when bundled with Longhorn?
-Who would leave Google if it works? Their only hope is to integrate it into IE after the next update. -They seem to lack highlighted cache pages so far. Most of my computer illiterate friends -Is this cost effective for them? Google is built on farms of cheap computers running Linux. I would bet that Google's research team (linguists, comp scientists, et al) is a more expensive investment than their hardware. -Google's speed is unmatched and Google will always work to make their's faster than competition. It's hard to do better than instant.
Holy crap. There must be something seriously twisted about this guy, if his reaction to the fact that somebody else being successful and admired is rage.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Kind of like Netscape?
Yeah. Google will float on top until someone better comes along, or Marketing brings it down.
"An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program."
Google is now too deeply embedded into most web users vocabulary to be knocked off the #1 spot
Kinda like for many americans AOL = Internet?
Things have a funny way of creeping up on you when you least expect them.
If Google continues to become more and more useless in the results it brings up, it provides incentive to move to a different search engine.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
does that not seem to be an obvious, harmless, practical joke to you? Do you really think that if someone looks up "more evil than satan," and they get back gooogle.com, that they will...do anything other than laugh?
if MS provides something superior, people will switch. (if they are just "copying" google, then it won't happen.) sadly, the fact they can default 95% of the computer to use msn search means it may not take much of an improvement, at at all to take over.
While I disagree that Microsoft is a very litigous company (they mostly go after pirates, which I think is a legitimate grievance), I think you might have missed the obvious:
Microsoft does not innovate. It copies, assimilates, and polishes. Microsoft software is never groundbreaking in any significant way - it just is usually more usable, better integrated, more reputable, and cheaper than the competition. Of course, once they have eliminated the competition, they no longer have anyone to copy.
Bottom line seems to be that nobody is going to be switching over to MSN Search from Google anytime soon.
Wait until it's built into Longwait.
Jeez, do I really have to explain monopoly expansion via bundling for umpteenth time on Slashdot? OK, here it is short and sweet. If someone has a monopoly, their customers have no other practical choice than to use their product. If that monopoly then enters another market, and bundles their two products, there is no way any competitor can survive, even with a better product. If you follow this to it's end conclusion, you end up with one company that sells everything. This is why we have a regulated capitalist system. Because monopolies are bad for everyone except the monopolist.
Microsoft has already set back the computing industry by a decade. Think of all the great companies they bought and killed, or squashed with bundling. When MS incorporates a search engine into their browser, all the cool stuff google (and everyone else in the search space) would otherwise bring us will not happen.
Each search result on both engines are very very similar:
Okay, Yahoo, Altavista, and AllTheWeb also use the blue-black-green color scheme as well, but the MSN search results still seem to be the most similar to google.
They are going to pull off another Netscape.
/picz
Microsoft can capture Google's users using their dominance on the browswer market.
If the next version of MSIE has a big fat SEARCH button in the navigation bar, then Google has already lost half of the so called "normal users" (The ones, that just click on stuff on their desktop with no clue about what a program is)
regards
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