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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.
A quick test I performed showed interesting results. I plugged in the word Galen in both Live and Google. Live returned 1,160,846 results while Google gave 13,200,000 results. Considering Live was just released the discrepancy isn't hard to understand. What was interesting was what the first result was. 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.
The second result for both Live and Google were the same, the Galen Institute homepage.
While one test doesn't a study make, considering Microsofts track record of returning results, I don't forsee myself using their service (especially with all the clutter on the screen).
As an aside, does everyone else get the weather forecast for LA in the lower left corner? I'm on the opposite coast so maybe it's related to where the servers are rather than what IP you come from.t
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
They certainly are competing with Google on response time.
I probably could walk cross-country to Microsoft and submit my search on paper quicker than this. Or maybe use the cans connected by string.
All of google's products are Beta and work perfectly.
GMail hasn't been working all that great for me since they introducted GTalk. I had been having laggy service when logging in including errors that I should wait a while and try refreshing. Since then, I have been communicating with GTalk people via bitlbee and have it disabled in GMail (click the link at the bottom). That solved my issues.
While I believe that Google's "Beta" products are generally in perfect working order, I won't say that they are all "working perfectly".
I think it's about time Microsoft hired a UI team. Or if they have one, get them the hell back from the 10 year holiday they've been taking after Windows 95.
If you've played with Vista and see the magical disappearing menu bars and buttons, (TIP: hiding functionality under the banner of relevance is damn confusing to EVERYONE) you'll see that Windows Live seems pretty indiciative of a company that has no clue what thir UI should be doing.
That said, Google Video could have done with the GMail team's sparkle. Seems like a lot of companies are simply getting it wrong right now.
This seems to me to be the normal MSN results wrapped up in adverts for other MS offerings. I remember Google being such a break through because of it's uncluttered, clear and fast results. Live seems like a step backwards to me!
Internet Marketing Consultants
I was puzzled as to why running the front page from firefox gives a different result then IE
turns out that the "Gadget Gallery" among others does not apper in IE 6 sp2 unless you click on and off of the "The Basics" section
shows up fine in Firefox, just a little ironic
Do you really think that MS doesn't have the personell[sic] necessary to create a great search? Just because google has a "fun" work environment doesn't make them the greatest.
Actually, Google has a lot of the best people because of their work environment and because they are very picky. The strategy is not so different from my current job. Relax the environment, no dress code, free snack food and soda, free beer in the fridge, no one checking what hours you work, a couple couches is you need a cat nap. What does this cost our company? Probably less than the salary difference of one high paid employee if they decided to move to the job that just paid the best. People work here because they want to and because they are smart enough to realize that money isn't everything and if you're going to spend a huge portion of you life working, doing so in a fun environment while working on interesting projects is a better choice than retiring two years earlier all stressed out and hating your field.
This means we have to hire motivated people, but also means the really smart ones want to work here. We have some ex-MS employees here. We also have had Google steal away a guy. MS has a lot of people, including some very smart ones, but their culture makes it hard for them to really get anything done right. Throwing money at a problem and hiring a dozen managers who get in each other's way and are constantly modifying what you are working on is not the best way to get things done.
it's also similar to Apple's OS X loading icon.
has anyone got it to work in Safari? just says loading for me.
Results of a 1 of search comparison
I searched "WoW macro useItem"
Both Google and Windows Live suggested "WoW macro use Item"
Windows Live returned 14 hits
Google returned about 491
Windows Live included 3 commercial links.
Google returned no commercial links.
Two of the commercial links were for sites selling bugs, hacks and exploits which when used are violations of the TOS and EULA you agree to when using the game.
Thanks Microsoft for promoting violation of EULA agreements. We know where you stand on this.
Disclaimer: I used to work for MSN (this disclaimer will soon be ironic, though)
I just loaded up live.com and searched for myself. Decent results, whatever...search sites don't usually wow me any more. Then I click on the "images" tab and...both of my Firefox windows just disappear.
I am very amused that Microsoft found a way to crash Firefox on RH4.
But the clear winner: Windows Live
So it's got something to do with Windows(R)? Nope. Nothing that I can see. It's a web server that can be called up by Mac's, Suns, Crays, etc... No windows in those.
So the "Live" business it's:
IMHO The Worst Name Ever
Not only that, but apparently the search engine results aren't "real" links; middle-clicking them won't open them in a new tab (though, strangely, right-click->Open in New Tab does). And the mousewheel works for me IF I click somewhere on the results page to set the focus on it.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
I viewed it on a corporate network with IE6 and it crashed the browser twice after about 60 seconds. After it loaded it pretty much appeared to be identical to google.com/ig but all cutesypoo.
Really, the only advantage Live has over google.com/ig is that it has a much better URL. Unfortunately, that's probably enough to win over a lot of the noobs of the world.
It's a new UI paradigm I have not seen before. It's a dragbar that takes you through the search results, which are streamed from the server in real time as you drag. No more paging through search results. I think it is a novel idea.
PS the Page Up / Down and Home keys work too, as well as your scrollwheel.
Once you realize it is not a scrollbar and actually try it a bit you'll see hwo cool it is.
Also try the 'Add To My Live" button, tres cool. The image search is also blowing Google's away.
I was scrolling through a test search, and all of a sudden their crappy excuse for a scroll bar jumped to the left! What the hell? Suddenly, ads popped up in its place.
Advertisers are not going to like that. It will cause many, many mis-clicks on the ads. I narrowly escaped clicking on the ad under my mouse.
If this were a site using Google ads, they would be suspended by Google for violating quality assurances that Google gives their advertisers about the pages on which their ads are published.
Also, it fills up your history. If you scroll a lot and then hit "back", it just dicks about in the list of links you've just scrolled through. That alone is enough to make me never use it. Peter
When I try to type "/" (to start Firefox's vi-like quick find feature) it puts the "/" in the search box and won't allow the search to function normally. Unforunate.
I did a search for "linux". Got relevent results. Did a search for "microsoft sucks" and got Microsuck.com. Will they replace google? Not today. But they're finally off to a decent start.
Middle clicking search results is also disabled. They actually had to go out of their way to stop me from opening search results in tabs by middle clicking.
Regards,
Steve
Have you every tried to go to googles website with javascript turned off. Everything degrades properlly and is still usable. Try to use this search with javascript turned off and it utterly flounders.
I got an error popup when I tried to search - that's firefox. Live has never worked in Safari.
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