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Windows Live Search goes Live
novus ordo writes "Microsoft has launched the Windows Live Search. Among the reports,
Microsoft Search Senior Product Manager, Justin Osmer says that "The beta, and a revision expected in a few months, will challenge market leader Google."" I like the more dynamic image searching tool. It seems really slow- I'm not sure if that's the dynamicness (is that a word?) or just standard
launch lag.
See, this is the differance between MS and Google. All of google's products are Beta and work perfectly.
But when microsoft says Beta they mean: "In the beggining there was nothing, And God said Let there be light..."
-first post?
Agreed. It's impossible to know where you are in the list, I can't use my mousewheel on it, it's not where I expected it to be... pretty much every single mistake Flash designers were making back in the late 90s.
Just because it's in AJAX doesn't make it any more of a good idea.
I guess what they were trying to do was just get the adverts always in view, something that could have been achieved with CSS and web browsers that support CSS properly. Oh wait, hang on...
The dynamic window showing the results...well, it just sucks. It doesn't show enough results, and the scroller doesn't give any kind of context as to where you are within the results. Its slow. That may be due to this computer being slow, but I don't have to worry about it on any other search engine. I'd almost prefer frames (not by much).
I was going to tell all of that to MS, but the "help us improve" link was 404 when I tried it...
In the case of Live the first result was a photo studio run by Galen and Barbara Powell. For Google the first result was much more relevant: a link to the University of Virgina Health System which talked about the medical practice from the past of which Galen is listed in the links.
Relevant to whom? Is this the first time you have used a search engine?
I'm hoping you at least tried "Galen and medical" before you decided that Live's inability to read your mind wasn't reasonable.
Whether they can make a good search tool is irrelevant.
It's about whether they do make such a tool.
Google did, Microsoft didn't.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Actually, it probably does - that's what the "personalized search" is about I guess.
In the other hand, why on earth does microsoft thinks that a ajax scrollbar is going to be better than the integrated browser scrollbar? A way to keep the search field at first sight? I'd rather have a search field which moves when I scroll down the page than that thing....also, it's not obvious for users how that scrollbar must be used. How I get more results? I had to spend a time trying to figoure out what's going on there.
In the case of Live the first result was a photo studio run by Galen and Barbara Powell. For Google the first result was much more relevant: a link to the University of Virgina Health System which talked about the medical practice from the past of which Galen is listed in the links.
This example explains why people need to be as specific as possible when entering search terms. Maybe if you entered Galen Institute or Galen Medical you would have a better time. Galen Rowell (not Powell, I assume a misspelling on your part) is (was, he's dead now) a very important and relevant figure in nature photography. Most of his work has to do with mountain scenes and mountaineering. As an avid nature photographer, if I simply typed in Galen, I would expect his name to show up in the top 5, maybe even the #1 link, while scratching my head about this medical nonsense.
Think of how many words there are that can refer to a plethora of completely different subjects. One name or word will be significant to me for one reason, while it may be significant to you for another reason. The computer can not and will not ever figure out which significance you are concerned with on its own. You have to tell it why it is significant to you - "Galen Institute" vs "Galen photography".
"Machine will never conquer man because machine is dumb."
a search engine can only go on your keywords
I'm glad you don't make search engines.
The usefullness of a search engine is directly proportional to its ability to discern the relative probability that each page matching your search terms contains useful information. Every major search engine uses its own set of heuristics to decide how useful a page is, and to what extent it is related to the words that it contains. It's not only reasonable to expect that a search engine can guess which, of the millions of pages may match your query, you're looking for, but it may be the only reason search engines are useful at all.
I guess I remember the 90's too well. I am in my late 20's, and watch all those companies that had foosball tables in the lobby go under. So perhaps I am prejudiced by facts.
I lived through the same thing. Have you ever heard that correlation is not causation? This is a perfect example. Sure lots of companies with foosball tables went under, but so did plenty without. It was not the relaxed atmosphere that killed them, it was the fact that their business plans were junk. Some of them were just ways to funnel venture capital to "the guys" and have some fun. Some were incompetent people who thought because something was "cool" it was profitable. Google is not going out of business, they are making money, and so are we. Any HR drone who does not think keeping employees happy is a important concern is an idiot. Stress and poor working conditions lead to turnover, medical problems, and people motivated to do the least work possible. If I come in on a sunday to get something from the office, or grab some papers so I can answer someone's question I'm proving that keeping me happy helps, because I am there on a sunday. It is not unusual for someone else to be in the office on a sunday either. People pull all-nighters, not because they have some manager breathing down their necks, but because something really interesting is happening or because they want to make sure a customer is happy. Of course having some real stake in the company helps to motivate people too.