Memo Outlines Microsoft's Plans

conq wrote to mention a BusinessWeek article that covers some of Microsoft's upcoming web plans. From the article: "Live.com, Microsoft's customizable search-oriented portal, has more than 3 million users and the second-highest Net Promoter score -- a metric showing how many users would recommend the site to others -- of all MSN.com properties, writes Cole. That's good news, since the Live.com portal is the entry point for the first release of its Windows Live Search, the site through which Microsoft hopes to make the big bucks through paid search. Microsoft on Mar. 8 unveiled a slew of features aimed at letting users personalize the way they search the Web."

Comments

dead.com

[FishandChips]

When I tried live.com (Firefox on Debian) I clicked on the Safety Center widget hoping for some hot tips but got this message instead: "Oops, we seem to be having a problem with this feed. Please try again later.". I then tried their "Live" searchbox at the top of the page but after a minute of staring at a white screen which just said "Loading ..." I gave up. After that I clicked on tabs which said "News" and "Images" but these also produced a entirely blank if quite restful white screen.

Good to see that things worked just as one would expect from MS. Naturally I would unhesitatingly recommend live.com - my small contribution to Micosoft's prodigious "Net Promoter" score. When folks get back to me saying live.com doesn't work, I'll be suggesting they another website and, preferably, try Mac OS or Ubuntu as well.

Re:dead.com

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, it's even only the second-least sucking.

On a related note, the Live Search did work for me (Firefox1.5 on winXP), but Microsoft for some reason assumed my browser doesn't have any scrollbars, and so gave me their own javascript-enabled one, which of course doesn't work with my scrollwheel. Thanks, thanks a lot.

Re:Live.com

[bbzzdd]

It used to belong to Live Networks Inc (check Wayback). They are a vendor of streaming media tools. They had the domain since at least 1998.

Re:Huh???

[metroplex]

The same happens to me on a mac using Safari 1.3.2 (v312.5). That's silly.

Net promoter score

[AnotherDaveB]

I'd never heard of a "Net promoter score", so I asked Google, and it pointed me to another Businessweek article.

...companies measure customer loyalty by asking one simple question rather than relying on lengthy satisfaction surveys: "On a scale of zero to 10, how likely is it that you would recommend us to your friends or colleagues?"

"net promoter scores," ... [are] ... the difference between the percentage of customers who give high responses ("promoters") and those who give low ones ("detractors"),

Re:haha.

[dioscaido]

Even as an MS employee I've always considered the MSN group to be pretty lame, and produce lame products. But I gotta tell you, they have a fire in them right now that is palpable. They suddenly have an influx of real talent, tons of research resources, and a determination to outshine Google. Some of the stuff they have on the pipeline is geniunely interesting. Anyway, take that for what it's worth. They may still come out with lame products and fail spectacularly. But MSN '05-'06 is definitely not classic MSN, which is good for everyone.

Re:Live.com

[webzone]

Firefox does an "I'm feeling lucky" search on Google when the address is invalid if I well remember. It turns out that Microsoft is first in the list when you search for that.

Re:Live.com

[Val314]

well... hava you googled for "http"?

http://www.google.com/search?q=http&start=0&ie=utf -8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US :official

first link is to MS, and firefox does a feeling lucky search for this