Slashdot Mirror
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's already getting either googlewhacked or biased from the inside. Just look at the top two results for searching "More evil than god" (no quotes)
The difference is that the defalts "Safesearch" settings are set to "Moderate - Filter sexually explicit images only">. I changed it to "Strict - Filter sexually explicit text and image results">, I got this message for xfree86
The search xfree86 may return sexually explicit content.
We didn't return results because your SafeSearch setting is set to Strict. To get results using the current search, change your SafeSearch setting.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Or did you not get that memo? :)
There's a small review at The Register. His impression is better query features, bad results.
But much more interesting is his commentary on what all search engines are missing. Most of the "data" people want to find isn't on any computer network. It's in our social network, our minds. So how do we get the technology to adapt to society? Or do we force society to adapt to the technology.
The "search engine wars" might be a little interesting. But are they missing the big picture? From a non-technical person's perspective they might be.
Developers: We can use your help.
First stop when searching is Google. But when I appear to have stumped Google I go over to Jeeves.
Ask Jeeves is interesting because unlike other search engines which work by assuming you at least have a hunch on what you need, AJ doesn't. The BBC's example is perfect: Searching for "raleigh" could mean the famous historical figure, multiple cities around the world, different buisness and brands, etc. Google is inclined to dump them all onto you and make you sort it out. If Google presents what you need on the first page it might be more by popularity or luck but AJ shows you a bunch of fast ways to filter out results from the huge disparaging set of matches.
This is a feature I wish Google had. If I get too many matches that appear to not be what I'm looking for I rephrase the querry which AJ does on the fly with these filters.
Maybe Google's the search King in terms of Volume, but the quality of the results is turning to shit real fast.
I find much better results with alltheweb now than Google.
Google needs to find a way to filter out shit content - content that just takes usenet stuff and posts as html; content that just is a set of hyperlinks to other content and has nothing else to contribute.
Right now, it's hard to find relevant web content through google because of google-spammers. If google isn't careful, people will start switching away from it, as easily as people switched to it.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
When I worked for IBM (namedrop) in 95-96, I stood up at a conference and said to the CEO in front of 1000 dyed-in-the-wool delegates "There is a buzz about Windows, and ALL the students are using it. Today's students are tomorrow's CIOs, engineers and buyers. What is the board going to do to recapture that buzz for OS2*". To IBM's credit I wasn't fired on the spot, but there again, the answer was the usual deadwood remarks about "market need blah datacenter blergh blah".
IBM then went into a dark period with OS2, OS400, MVS, TSO, JSL, CICS, MQ, DB2, Websphere, PC, AIX etc etc etc. They became all things to all people and had an application to do anything you wanted. The sales guys treated the customers like cash cows and leveraged the datacenter iron like crazy. Customers hated it and you physically could see the pleasure on their faces when UNIX and PCs arrived so they could stick one on IBM.
Sound familiar?
Today there is a buzz about OSS that MS can only dream about. But more to the point, MS are falling into the same trap as IBM. They are trying to diversify into areas best left alone for example Handsets and Search Engines. They do both badly, they leverage their installed base like crazy and the sales guys treat their customers like cash cows (coincidence? not really. There is every chance it's the same sales guys).
The reason such mega-companies act like spoilt two-year olds is a result of how capitalism works. Investors always want growth. It is unacceptable to stand in front of the AGM and say: "We made 100 gazillion again last year. Same as the year before and the year before that". So if you already own 98% of the PCs then you can't go up - you have to go sideways into new revenue earners, eg search engines. And you will never, EVER be as good at that because its a market or a technology or a customer or a partner or a culture you do not understand. Mistakes are made. Things go wrong. People get sued. Then you start to die. Its a bit like bacteria in a flask. Ironically anyone with a pension scheme will have some money invested however indirectly in this process. I smile every day knowing I am doing my bit to eat away Microsoft from the inside just as my serial installations of Linux of friends systems eats them from without.
I digress.
Add to this death spiral Bill's insane need to WIN AT ALL COSTS and you have the recipe for a firm that is at odds with itself: It has to grow but can only do so by changing but it can't change because it always has to be RIGHT. When it is more important to be RIGHT than to be ACCEPTABLE then it's only a matter of time until you have no customers.
*I didnt come across Linux until a month or two later after which I became a Linux advocate.