Windows Live Search
Well, today Microsoft finally released the beta version of their new search engine, being tested for the time being at Windows Live Search. They are calling it Windows Live Search, and the articles that I have read about it are confusing at best. The list of features that they are touting are things like:
Tabbed Web Browsing - This will also be implemented into the next versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. Not to sound like a Mac snob, but this is simply not a selling point. Safari (Mac) and Firefox (Mac & PC) browsers have been offering tabbed browsing for over a year now. It's great, don't get me wrong. I am just a little confused as to how this is supposed to be a ground-breaking feature.
A Search Slider - another GUI trick that simply let's you adjust the amount of information displayed in the search results. Again, it seems suspiciously similar to the many RSS readers, including the above mentioned browsers. To me this seems like another weak feature that really doesn't effect how relevant the search results are. In reality, the "slider" offers three (count 'em, three) discrete settings and is not what I would consider a slider at all.
A Single Page Display - Rather than breaking search results into multiple pages, they will be displaying the results in a scrollable section on one page. I actually think that this is a fantastic idea, and hopefully one that will catch on. I'd like to see this implemented in all search engines. To Microsoft's credit, their scrollbar functionality is pretty cool, and is reminiscent of some flash scroll bars. I personally really like the way this one works.
There are more features. However, they all seem to be on the user interface side, and don't really represent orginal or ground-breaking achievements in search technology, despite what the Microsoft PR people are saying. One thing I find interesting about the whole thing is that there doesn't seem to be any new search engine functionality. For example, I can't find any information that says this new search engine will pull together more relevant results than before. I don't see any information about what is being done to improve the way the internet is indexed and how relevant content is ordered and found. To be honest, I get the feeling that Microsoft is re-packaging their current search engine in a pretty new shell and calling it a breakthrough.
Perhaps that is all that internet users want. While I can't help but feel that this is not much more than a website re-design, a re-packaging of the same search technology, it does have some really useful features. I mean, the search engine is not the only reason that they are doing Windows Live Search. The page provides a great home page for people with a ton of good functionality like an RSS aggregator, news, internet tools and more. I have to say that it is a pretty good move in general by Microsoft. With respect to the future of I would want in a home page, this has it. All in all an interesting development.
And after all, it is in beta right now, so hopefully the glitches will get worked out soon.
