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Microsoft LIVE Search : Will It Steal The Show ?
(9 votes, average: 3.89 out of 5)
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WATBlog was invited to a selected screening of some of the new features on Microsoft LIVE Search today. I went hoping to find something interesting. More interesting than the algorithm-tweaks itself. And what I saw were just wonderful. Microsoft has nailed it right there. The usability changes done to the LIVE search are just wonderful. Add a lot of value to the user.
I always knew LIVE Search’s algorithm was as good as the other alternatives (Read:Google) - I had done enough trail-n-error to prove this - but users have been slow in adopting. There can be a plethora of reasons for this, one being users comfort level with Google. For users to migrate to Microsoft LIVE Search in a large number, a marginal tweak in the search algorithm will not do. A significant leap in the user experience is what is needed. Today, I witnessed something like that at Microsoft’s corporate office, here in Mumbai.
Here is what I saw -
Image Search
So there is no page 2, we were told. When you do an image search, thumbnail pictures are shown in a grid. You keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. The page updates itself, to show all your image search results right there on the first page. I liked it. It takes far less time than an entire page load-up so the results are visible to you faster. If anyone has ever searched for the right image to put in on a blog post, they’ll know what I mean.
There’s something called a scratchpad. So, while you are searching for the images, you can drag-n-drop selected images in a region called scratchpad. Scratchpad stores these images and shows it to you the next time you do an image search. This is maintained via cookies, so it’s machine specific. Helps you create a pool of images that you want to refer to again and again.
There was also image filtering. So, you can filter the image search resukts to show only the black and white images. Or images with faces. Or images with “head and shoulder” (yes).
An image preview is seen when you move a mouse over a thumbnail.
Clicking on the image opens a special window/tab where to the extreme left you have all the resulting images as a film strip and to the right hand side, in a different frame, the clicked image on its original page.
Video Search
OK, now here is where the most amazing feature comes in. Just go to www.live.com. Above the search bar, click on video. And do a search for any video that you want to see. Yes, you get thumbnails of the results. All well till now. Now, just move your mouse pointer over any one of the thumbnail preview and keep it there for a few seconds. What did you see? YES, the video starts playing, right there - out of a thumbnail preview. This demonstration had me going WoW ! Incredible! I mean, how cool is that! You don’t have to try and play each video to see if it’s really the one that you’re looking for (Tell me that has happened with you). This one feature is a very important milestone. Technically and from the usability perspective. Makes the life of the user a lot easier. Ravi Datanwala, Group Manager - Live Search, Consumer & Online International Microsoft India told us that this is something that emerged out of Microsoft Research. Very good work, I must say. Microsoft sure is innovative. Oh well, I always knew that. No waiting for the other camp’s response on this.
Local Search
Hmmm, three taps in my room were leaking today. Stuff in my room were floating. I wanted a plumber. Heck, I needed a plumber. I didn’t know just hours later, I;m gonna witness something which could have helped me. Googling for plumbers in Mumbai is hardly useful, as you might know. So, what ? Well, plumbers in Bandra is what I was looking for. This was exactly what was demonstrated to me by Ravi, today at Microsoft. Putting in a search query like this, gives you names and numbers of the relevant services in that area. I actually noted down a number.
Although it’s not actually a unique feature. Asklaila has been doing it for ages now. And even Google local results can show you ones. Just that Microsoft LIVE search results were more relevant and they could be done right from the main Live.com interface. You don’t need to know of a different sub domain (like local.google.com) to perform the search. An incremental improvement.
LIVE Search Cricket
A very interesting India-specific innovation. Well, the feature is currently in internal testing. No beta as of now. But we got to see the tests. Searching for cricket updates don’t send you to third party websites about Cricket (cricinfo.com, etc). But what it gives is the cricket match score updates and cricket match schedules. Ravi told us that the feature will be covering many sports in the near future. The feature was a little “hush-hush” as of now, according to Ravi, and you are probably reading about it first on WATBlog.
When available on mobile, this will be an interesting feature.
xRank is another feature where Live automatically ranks the celebrities. This is based on some internal algorithms. Although I didn’t find it much usable, but might be a good thing to play around for a while. For the record Katrina Kaif had an xRank 1 while Shah Rukh Khan had an xRank of 175. So, as I said, not much useful. The ranks are probably based on the queries about a particular celebrity.
WAT’s Take ?
Well, MS is working damn hard to make it big in the search business. The efforts are visible. More so, now. And from what I have seen, their product is as good as anyone else’s. The search algorithm is good enough. Google’s search results are not significantly better than LIVE Search’s. The point here is perception. Google’s perception goes as the company with the best search engine around. And they have earned that respect. But now others are catching up, technically at least. Users, however are not too fast to adopt. Though Ravi pointed out that the LIVE search traffic in India has been increasing at the rate of 15% month-on-month, it’s still a long way to go. Currently, Google’s market share in search is 70.77% , while Microsoft’s is just 5.36% (Source : Computer World). To turn this the other way round, is gonna take up a lot of efforts. I am expecting a lot of users to turn to Live.com, at least for their video searches. It’s my default search engine for videos, that’s for sure. Even for images.
We would love to know about your thoughts on the new features in Live search. Looking for a live interaction in the comments.
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I went to Live after a long time and found the search results page free of ads. That is clean and wonderful and will surely impress many more.
The algorithm is fine though I could hardly find India PR Blog when I search for public relations in India. Who else?
Also it doesn’t show the latest PR posts from any PR and marketing blogs from India when I did the search on the Feeds Search. These were topics I was very familiar with and thought I’d run a check.
Live should also stop putting ads on the footers of emails and shiny large banners on the sidebars of their inboxes. That way people will stat using the Live mails seriously, for work purposes for example. This way Live users can get a holistic experience from every Live service. Not just search. It all connects. Look at Google.
How much money did they give you to write all this bull ?? seriously!
@piyush - If people paid us or we charged them to write post with over 2500 paid posts in the last two years I would have been a millionnaire! Well sorry to dissapoint you but I aint a millionnaire.
With respect to ankit’s post well ankit has a soft corner for microsoft but this post isn’t biased as even I have seen the features and they are pretty good.
The point to note is that if the same features were being launched by Google everyone would be wow! Because everyone cheers the leader.. In this case the features are great but just because its live search it may not go down well with the tech enthusiast who connects more with google and apple than microsoft.
@Palin Ningthoujam: I agree with “all connects” term. Cross product traction is how google is creating a powerful business model.
I agree with the authors review. The video section is just wow.
@Palinn
Thanks for the comment.
Emails is a different issue. Yahoo and Hotmail were the leaders till GMail came. And GMail was significantly better than Yahoo/Hotmail and therefore users migrated to it. For people to use the LIVE email address it has to offer something that’s significantly better than GMail.
@Piyush
That for someone interested in the technology business, is a lot. You will know what I mean if you are one.
Ohh, actually they paid a lot. I received a personalized “Thank You” email form them, promising me a first-look at all the future new features.
@Sameer
Thank you Sameer
I’m glad you liked the article.
Please keep coming back for more.
I checked out the features for images and video search. They are really cool. These are the two areas where google search is not sufficient. So, MS has certainly done a great job in filling the loopholes.
As far as local search and search algorithm is concerned I’m still not convinced how its better than google. That we’ll know over a period of time while comparing search results. I think google’s local search will be far better now.
Hi,
Whatever you guys may say, the article is biased and misleading. Live Search is way behind Google and I DO NOT understand how you say it is AS GOOD AS Google? Are you guys amateurs or WAT?
Too biased towards live and some factual innaccuracies.
1. You don’t need to remember different URL for local queries on Goole. Just type query in Google. No seperate local.google.com. I find results of “plumber in bandra” to be better at Google than at live. Local results integrated with Google results look better than live.
2. Regarding your point of sports scores. Just type “cricket score” on google and see what happens…Real time cricket scores. Didn’t you know this or you were just hiding
You guys definitely are biased towards M$ stupid image and video search. Showing images on one page definitely not rocket science also the page becomes too heavy as I scroll down a few pages. Too many images loading. In fact it just a very simple javascript code to do it. Google search results are way much better than M$. I don’t think somebody would use this live shit after getting used to such high quality search from Google…even if they pay money. M$ was, is and will be shit.
@Rahul
As you yourself said, the image and video search is A good feature. Yeah, the algorithm part is a bit debatable, but we can see improvements. Whose algorithm is actually better, is anybody’s guess
@Shashi
We reported what we saw. Sure, there are differences in search engines, but LIVE Search is not “way behind” Google. Did you even use LIVE search? Please do. You will find the difference. And about being amateur, well ask anyone about WAT in the Indian Internet industry, and you’ll get an idea
@Monica
Some of the factual inaccuracies mentioned by you, we humbly accept.
Thank you for pointing them out and adding value to this discussion.
@Piyush
Thanks for dropping by Piyush.
Let me assure you that we are “not” biased towards any one company. We reported what we witnessed there. Regarding your comment about image search not being “rocket science”, let me ask you a simple question. Of all the web technologies that you have witnessed so far, which one would you keep in the category of “rocket science” ? It’s not about being “rocket science”, its about the end user experience. Putting all the pictures on one page makes my browsing so much easier. And yes, there is NO slowdown of the Internet, as all the images are NOT added at once. They are added, ‘as you scroll’, dynamically. Sure, it is doable, that’s how Microsoft did that, right?
And about Google search being “way better” than Microsoft, well that’s more of a perception. Check yourself. Seriously.
By the way, when you put statements like “M$ was, is and will be shit“, you get a fair idea of who is getting biased.
Thanks again for adding value to this discussion, keep coming back.
@All
Why everything related to Microsoft has to be “not-so-good“,while any stuff churned out by Google has to be interesting and exciting ?
Any thoughts on this? Would our readers like to read something on this ?
ya everybody has their perceptions, but it should not be very rigid
i think the images in one page is a good
hmm, some of the features are good, like the scroll till you drop image view and the thumbnail video play, but i see some limitations in the search results itself (both quantity and quality).. my search was ‘bangalore bloggers’ take a look, its perhaps to do with the number and type of pages indexed? while this may be a random result, for a user every search is an important one
Dear Ankit,
That is a really brave post. Hats off to you for siding with MS. Having said, I think you have not witnessed the power of google search api. All these functions are very much doable with hardly 1 hour coding. Please try them once.
If it is such a great feature and google can do that then why is google not doing it? Because
1. It is confusing. A page that keeps expanding may not be confusing to you but it will surely be confusing for others.
2. There is a difference between search engines and a directory. A search engine’s job is to make sure that you do not have to go beyond 1 page.
@binaryday
the point here is not “why is google not doing it?” but the fact that MS thought of it first n came up with something new to serve users better is commendable n should be appreciated… that is exactly what ankit did in this post ,he appreciated their new features n efforts…
and MS is not way behind to compete with google… inorder to shift users from google to Live search ,MS’s search results have to be as good as google…and once they work out with their quality of search results they can surely compete with google …
I m really impressed with MS image n video feature…
@Ankit
great post
i cannot comment on MS’s technological prowess(algorithm), but in my opinion they need to focus on promoting their product more aggressively.
M a google loyalist but the new interface and features like video search did attract. Just wondering how long will it take for normal users to explore this feature and how???
thank you for sharing
@binaryday
Have you ever tried looking at Live Search SDK? I bet you don’t even know about it.
I see need for another Mojave experiment here
@ Monica
I saw the blog today itself. Regarding instant answers for Cricket etc, MS is working hard to get it done. Instant answer feature is not less than Google in any way and gives little bit more information.
@Anand
MS has come a long way in search and is progressing at an incredible rate in terms of quality and usability. Its the user migration from google to live which is taking time and once it catches motion and people start exploring live services better, its gonna turn the market upside down. Still i agree google is like tried and tested thing and got a name which is hard to beat.
@Ankit
Great article. Keep the good work going.
@Miheer
I agree with you. I likes the images-in-one-page option
@Manuscrypts
Microsoft is making improvements at a breathtaking speed. Yes, I agree there are still some grounds to cover. Lets se where they end up in a few weeks from now.
@Binaryday
Thank you for the encouragement. Writing good about Microsoft, in today’s times, do take some courage, I agree.
And about Google API, well our reader @Deobrat Singh has answered that well.
Microsoft has been quite pro-active in distributing their SDKs. Right from the time of Visual Studio. Just try their Web SDK.
And I disagree that images on a single page is “confusing”. Its not. Its simpler to use. Just try.
Regarding your “search engine and directory point”, well, what if you have to go beyond the first page. Won’t it be good if you can see all on fist page only. Instead of refreshing pages, all you need to do this, scroll down. Think about it.
Thanks for coming.
@Pooja
Thanks for the wonderful comment. Please keep coming back.
@Anand
Thats the point. They need to market their product heavily. Users need to be educated. Lets see
@izmir evden eve taşıma
You are welcome
Thanks for dropping by
@Deobrat Singh
Thanks for commenting. Please keep coming for more.
@Amit Garg
Thanks for commenting Amit.
And thanks once again, for the kind words.
Please keep coming back for more.