Slashdot Mirror
Inspecting MSN Search
ins0maniac writes "I compared Yahoo, Google and MSN's image search. I noticed that, MSN's search had images from only a few sites. I searched for keywords britney spears and randomly checked few pages upto page number 20 and found that the 400 images were only from 3 domains :| 5in9.com, celebritypicturesarchive.com and nabou.com. This is totally weird as it doesn't seem like a search engine, but a collection of few online galleries." There's a number of other interesting notes in the entry about the new search engine. Also, Britney.
..Is a revenue stream. The galleries in question probably pay for dominance. Yeah, this seems contrary to a full free search, but at least the results are on subject.
The real task, it would seem, would be to find a way to have the engine return the proper pictures for the proper searches (so typing in Daddy's birthday doesn't result in pictures of some 50 something dude banging some barely legal chick with a party hat on.)
Stuff like that.
I'm no MS supporter, but do you think this might be because the new search engine has been crawling the web for a fraction of the length of time Yahoo and Google have been crawling the web?
...and the very first link on the page (under "sponsored sites") is:
www.microsoft.com
Windows outperforms Linux: Industry case studies and test lab results provide insight into the advantages of the Microsoft®...
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
The original article has been /.'ed already, but there's a cogent point to be made:
Unless the images are titled, tagged, annotated, etc., there's no good way to index them.
If I just throws a bunch of images up on a web site, there's not good technology, other than some pretty advanced facial recognition stuff, that can determine who, or what, a particular picture represents.
Change the resolution, color depth, etc. and I change the checksum for the image, so the index fails to recognize that one picture is the "same" as another, just resized, etc.
I see a lot of that on Google's image search - but can't find a way around it, either.
this is contrary to google image search where it's not simply searching for filenames. google search seems to understand that images of britney spears need not have "britney" and "spears" in the filename.
Your logic is true for more than just webpages. It spans basically Microsoft's entire software library. Balmer's arrogantly stated that it "one mistake" was that it didn't get involved in the 'search' industry earlier, but anyone who has followed Microsoft's trail can tell you that thier late to the table more often than not. And even when they are on time, the product is often a faulty or damaged good that doesn't operate at the level of other competitor products.
Ex.
-IE debacle, where Microsoft played catch-up to Netscape and other existing browsers after failing to neglect thier need in earlier years.
-Direct3D, which played second fiddle to OpenGL for years in usability and features till Microsoft finally began adopting parts of OpenGL's paradigm for computer graphics.
-The modern desktop GUI. A product of Apple in many respects, but later was adopted by Microsoft.
-Powerpoint, Visio and other 'Office' products. They were created by other companies, and then consumed by Microsoft.
And the list goes on and on. Today thier trying to same with hand-held media players (derived from the success of iPods), search technologies (coming from Yahoo, Google, and other succesfull search/advertisement ventures), spyware detection and many other Microsoft 'Innovations' that are soon to hit the market.
It would be ok if microsofts success with "borrowed" ideas was because they implemented them better than anyone else. But they don't. They're successful because they abuse their monopoly status. And that's worthy of bashing.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!