I may be in the minority, but I think this is exciting. We need more competition in search. I'm not sure if Microsoft is the right company for the job, but I'm glad they finally seem to be taking search seriously.
I'm also glad they went with Bing and not Sift, as we bought BingSEO.com recently. ;)
I hope they start using it on MSDN. Until they can get their shit together with regard to search on their own properties, I don't have a lot of hope for them indexing the web.
Absolutely. There's a real culture problem at Microsoft that is hostile to search. I think its absolutely fair to say that Microsoft has treated search as an afterthought in their products, and it shows.
I recently saw Microsoft's Mike Gannotti speak about building Sharepoint portals for large organizations, and he said "if a user has to search you have failed them." The argument was that if a proper hierarchical navigation was in place a user should never have to search.
To me that's heresy, and I wasn't shy about saying so. The retort was that I saw search as a panacea, or worse as an excuse to be lazy about information architecture. Of course neither is true. I believe great IA begets great search and that both are important and worth getting right.
So I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm hoping Bing can work on both fronts, by applying taxonomy to unstructured information when it makes sense and staying out of the way the rest of the time. With the wealth of talent at Microsoft I think they are capable of building a great search engine, but only if they can really see search as more than an ad platform.
It's really unfortunate, because they have a terrible bitrot problem as well. If I try to find documentation on products older than 3 or 4 years old, at some point in the hunt for the correct documents, I'll end up at a 404 error. What makes it terrible is that I'll get that 404 from a page that I've been linked to from inside of MSDN, or from the search. I just use Google to search MSDN now, and it saves me tons of time (and frustration).
I like the competition but I also want Microsoft to lose.
The thing about Google is that it is a very intelligent but very minimal interface to the whole Internet itself. This thing, the whole Internet, has been expanding faster than any "portal" or other kind of "walled garden" could. I hope this continues, for the variety involved but also for the freedom - knowing that no entity (even Google) will be able to sweep the results away.
When Google is just providing access to something others can give access to as well, it keeps them somewhat honest even if they are 90% dominant. When Google or Microsoft or Wolfram or anyone both hosts content and provides the interface, it makes censorship much easier. Even Google is moving more towards doing combining hosting and search through owning Youtube but Google still looks like least likely to create a "wall garden".
It's different and I like the thesis behind it: "decision engine". A good way to understand search is to see how people make the decisions to go about what they're searching for. Keyword they start out with, its variants, the final answer/result, and what form of search they should be using. travel? local? image? etc. It's all going to come down to execution though (Cliche, but relevant here more than ever). If it sucks, then 80 mil in advertising wont work well. BUT if it is something that people have to say "yo, you NEED to try this", then things could get interesting.
With something like this, you don't want to overtly advertise. You want word of mouth to develop. I think the advertisement will sometimes work against them. I know I'm wary of ads for search -- most things advertised for search have been a disappointment to me.
Less is more. Microsoft just doesn't seem to get that. This interface looks like a convoluted piece of crap that changes based on what I search on. No thanks.
I don't know. I quite like the background photos on the current Live.com. It's a welcome change from the boring white pages.
I do agree that the results interface looks cluttered. Granted, they are trying to present a lot of information, but they should find a way to simplify it. I suspect they'll change it up in time and after a real world launch.
But that's just a taste preference (though I agree with the sentiment; I personally don't like white backgrounds in general). Plus, all indications are that the images are just a haphazard marketing decision. Good design controls and deliberately influences user behavior patterns. This just tries to look pretty and not be google, disregarding any impact that might have on usability or functionality.
looks like a portal type page is generated for each search. could be superior to google for shopping. though amazon already covers that base fairly well.
The form for searching out plane tickets and such was the only thing that jumped out at me. It might be a winner if they make it very easy to buy things through the search engine page...eg you search for 'Great New Movie', get a list of cinemas local to your zip, pick the theater+showtime you want, and then get a 'buy' button, all without leaving the search environment.
But things like that have been tried many times before. And I'm sure Google could resurrect Checkout or Wallet or whatever it was called.
Live is tough to use as a verb, and they use Live for a number of other products (e.g. Xbox Live, Windows Live, MSN Live Spaces). As a result they have to describe the search as Live Search, and they don't own LiveSearch.com.
So even though live.com is an awesome domain it wasn't going to work for their search engine.
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[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 61.4 ms ] threadI'm also glad they went with Bing and not Sift, as we bought BingSEO.com recently. ;)
I recently saw Microsoft's Mike Gannotti speak about building Sharepoint portals for large organizations, and he said "if a user has to search you have failed them." The argument was that if a proper hierarchical navigation was in place a user should never have to search.
To me that's heresy, and I wasn't shy about saying so. The retort was that I saw search as a panacea, or worse as an excuse to be lazy about information architecture. Of course neither is true. I believe great IA begets great search and that both are important and worth getting right.
So I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm hoping Bing can work on both fronts, by applying taxonomy to unstructured information when it makes sense and staying out of the way the rest of the time. With the wealth of talent at Microsoft I think they are capable of building a great search engine, but only if they can really see search as more than an ad platform.
The thing about Google is that it is a very intelligent but very minimal interface to the whole Internet itself. This thing, the whole Internet, has been expanding faster than any "portal" or other kind of "walled garden" could. I hope this continues, for the variety involved but also for the freedom - knowing that no entity (even Google) will be able to sweep the results away.
When Google is just providing access to something others can give access to as well, it keeps them somewhat honest even if they are 90% dominant. When Google or Microsoft or Wolfram or anyone both hosts content and provides the interface, it makes censorship much easier. Even Google is moving more towards doing combining hosting and search through owning Youtube but Google still looks like least likely to create a "wall garden".
TEH WOW STARTS NAO GUISE LOL
I do agree that the results interface looks cluttered. Granted, they are trying to present a lot of information, but they should find a way to simplify it. I suspect they'll change it up in time and after a real world launch.
But that's just a taste preference (though I agree with the sentiment; I personally don't like white backgrounds in general). Plus, all indications are that the images are just a haphazard marketing decision. Good design controls and deliberately influences user behavior patterns. This just tries to look pretty and not be google, disregarding any impact that might have on usability or functionality.
I don't have much confidence in this approach.
Learn from Apple, hush followed by success.
But things like that have been tried many times before. And I'm sure Google could resurrect Checkout or Wallet or whatever it was called.
The tag line is horrible: "When it comes to decisions that matter, Bing & Decide." I prefer the name "Live", since it seems more relevant.
So even though live.com is an awesome domain it wasn't going to work for their search engine.
If we reconsider Bing, Bang, and the Boom then this seems to be pretty far away from Boom.