MSN Search Has Arrived

strikehosting writes "The new MSN Search, "the first-ever search engine built from the ground up by Microsoft", has been launched worldwide. It will be available in 25 markets and 10 languages. A few features though, like MSN Music and 'Search Near Me', are available only in the United States. Sporting a cleaner look and a simplified layout, MSN Search has a more prominent position on the home page. The features that are available here include tabs that allow consumers to target searches to the Web, news, images, music, desktop or Microsoft Encarta."

Comments

[tt]:Encarta

[daniil]

From the Seattle Times article on this:

Microsoft still hopes that people will buy the Encarta software for additional tools not included in the search engine, such as a guide that helps children finish their homework. The Encarta features will make a huge difference in setting MSN Search apart from rivals, said Charlene Li, an analyst tracking the search industry for Forrester. "Here is this objective, fact-based information that you need," she said. "It's really hard to find that objective point of view" online.

For one, the use of the online Encarta isn't completely free. If you make an Encarta search, you'll notice a clock ticking in the left side of the screen: you only have two hours of "free" Encarta (remember, kids, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, especially coming from Microsoft). It seems that it won't stay free for long.

So, here's the dilemma: should one use non-free but objective Encarta or free but biased Wikipedia?

Re:[tt]:Encarta

[nyri]

http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=MSNH& srch_type=0&q=google

Parent's joke aside, I checked the page out of the curiosity.
I was positively surprised: the localization of MNS Search was a light-year ahead of Google (I'm from Finland). The first search result pointed to www.google.fi not www.google.com. Also, the page contained links to Finnish news about Google. This is nice as I like to read news from my local perspective and about local issues (America-centrisism of the Internet and the Google news service annoys).

I think the competition does well to the search industry. Therefore I'm gave MNS Search a change and, in fact, am going to use it until Google gets its localization shit together. I also urge others to give MNS Search real change. Google may be good, but monopoly won't make it better.

Re:[tt]:Encarta

[MightyPalm]

Yes very nice, but my ip was originally assigned to norway, and MS believes i am norwegian (even though i'm from Denmark).
This means i get a lot of norwegian results i didn't ask for, and i can't disable it!!! I can change the language in the "settings" bar, but i can't change my localization!!

MS, why oh why couldn't you check my browser language? Why couldn't you give me a choice of my own?

Oh wait.. that's right.. not your style. Google, i'm a' commin' home!

Misleading link

[IamTheRealMike]

That's a very misleading story article (surprise surprise), the actual page is search.msn.com - not the MSN.COM portal linked to above. It's a lot cleaner and smaller.

Come on guys. I know we're all rooting for Google in this fight, but childish tricks like that are just not cricket.

"free but biased Wikipedia?"

[FooAtWFU]

or free but biased Wikipedia?

Please note that Wikipedia's number one rule is called NPOV for "neutral point of view", before you go accusing it of widespread bias left and right. Not that it always lives up to the goal of being entirely bias-free, but I'd hardly call Encarta unbiased either, and it makes no claim that objectivity is an object.

And it's not like the two are mutually exclusive, either. If you have Encarta, you can still look up stuff on Wikipedia, compare and contrast their approaches, and learn more from the profit.

But Encarta probably is more suitable for children, because Wikipedia makes little effort to self-censor offensive material that you may not want your child to know about.