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Not just incrementally better, but something that changes how I interact with search. The work going on in domain specific search is a start, but is still in its infancy. There is definitely still a lot of space left in search, and it will require a company to figure out the next jump in tech/user interaction.
At the moment, Yahoo/Microsoft haven't innovated beyond Google's search platform - at best they've equaled it. These days, that's just not good enough.
Peculiar - I searched for 'liketheocean' (yeah that is my virtual web -www.liketheocean.com !!!).
The results from Live.com is here and one from Google is here.
There was only one result returned by Live while there were many from google (mine was listed in the 2nd page). Still Trying to think y... may be because it is a static page ?!!!
For me to switch to Live - it would be take much more that what they currently have (not just because they did not find my page !!!). Google has become a kind of habit and the trust that had been built all these years is really difficult to break :)
Note : Hi Scoble, I had be reading ur blog for a long time , this is the first time and leaving a comment (previously it was a voice mail). Nice Blog. Keeps me inspired ... Keep getting us interesting stuffs . Tx.
It could happen though, I used to think Ask.com was the end all search engines and I haven't used it in a couple years.
I currently use both Live Search and Google. It's hard to unpack when and where I choose which one although the fact I use Live.com as my homepage is a big factor. This is a whole lot different to a year ago when it was all Google.
On the web I always go to Google ... habit? trust? I do not know how to name it, but if MS would manage to integrate web search into the desktop search, I might not even bother anymore to go to a web page to search. I would just enter the search term and go, no matter who provides the results. Google Desktop Search has this search window that pops up when you press twice - that is so usable! I really missed it when I removed Google Desktop Search from my machine.
The best results should be the quickest, from the widest variety of sources (not everyone wants to read wikipedia!).
One problem I find with Google is that the index of blogs seems to be wrong, often, picking up categories or archive pages instead of actual posts on the subject I'm looking for. This is something to experiment with on Live.
The advantage Google has is not accuracy. That went out the window with all the search-engine-optimization companies. It's speed. Get in, search, open up a few tabs with a few hopefuls, get out. If the first few links are dead ends, the next few will have something.
I do not want to sign in. I do not want to check my sports scores (Unless I do, but only then) I do not want to know the latest on some actress. Yahoo, are you listening? Fortunately, Live search avoids the worst of these, and the use of text-only ads is good. BUT, in terms of speed, in server speed, in transfer speed, and in render speed, Live has a long ways to go.
The lead had changed several times before Google: 10-plus years ago, AltaVista was up there ... and way back in 1996 (I think) they launched a desktop search tool. I had our company's first Windows 95 machine (a super-fast P100!!) and was the only one able to run the software - which was so powerful that it overwhelmed our Novell-based corporate network and spidered everyone's private folders.
I did the honest thing and alerted our (outsourced) IT guy ... because it was going to be a CLM if anyone ever discovered that I'd been able to access that stuff.
I will give Live Search a try once again, but I guess it will be the same like always.
What I experienced when using the different search engines is that you have to use them different to get your results. Having to use your keywords different to get your results? Even less chance of switching :)
Why ? You cant even program you big fat wannabe......
However one thing I have to give to Google is that GoogleBot still indexs new pages ALOT faster then MSNBot (LiveBot now?) ever has. The only problem I've had with Google is that if you get delisted because of an error on their end it could be months before you're re-added to the index where as Live.com and MSN had you back on the index within days.
Worryingly though, both include prominant sponsored links to what seem to me to be slightly... dodgy... sites. (I almost always ignore sponsored links so it's not too much of an issue).
Having said that, I remember ten years ago, /the/ search engine to use was Altavista, until it comitted portal suicide.
Stu Why firefox?? I almost went round and set all our systems to IE I'am geting fed up of our developers building site's that break in IE cos thast their default.
Of course it's muggins heer that has to speak to the clients and try to convince them where not a bunch of muppets.
However, the main reason is that i simply don't trust Google. They have too much data about too many people. For some people I know, Google knows more about them than anybody else, probably including themselves. This is scary. Very scary. So I avoid them whenever I can. Yes, that is probably not necessary, but there is no real reason to use Google IMHO. The competition is just as good. Sometimes a little worse, but sometimes also a little better.
Live's results are as good as Google's, and I get less of the "search index page" results (where you search for something, get a bunch of search index pages, that refer to other index pages, on and on, before you get to real content; Google is infested with that crap since 2004.
But I think Yahoo gives the best results, but I don't like the UI much.
Why? Like you stated in your post. Trust. I have been using Google since... uhm... not sure when... almost day 1 really. It has always performed better than its competition.
Now, it "might" be on par. If it took MS that long to equal Google, then MS is missing it.
Now, as to Google... I said it the other day in another comment. I slowly switched to Google, a search here a search there, and as I discovered they had consistently better results I used them more until I only looked elsewhere when Google failed (rarely).
That's not the case anymore. Google fails to satisfy me more often than not on the terms I search for these days. I exact quote specific terms, frequently exclude 5+ terms, and still I find myself wading though pages of crap before I find the results I want. That's happening less and less with Yahoo and the like. Still, they are coming from behind and so playing catch-up in many instances so I usually try Google first. As soon as one consistently gives me more relevant results I'll switch to them just as I switched to Google back in the day.
http://digg.com/software/Windows_Live_Search_Al...
All that aside I have used both extensively for the past 2 months and I think Google results are *much* more accurate than Live Search. While I had Live Search as my default, I had to Google search the same term many times more than when it was the other way round.
Live is ahead in some respects though. The scratchpad is a great idea as are the related searches (though obviously found in other engines prior to Live Search adoption)
I'm so glad they ditched that scrolling thing they had before... It was terrible.
The problem here, is that MS's business plan seems to still be "lets be as good as google."
The main problem is, they're not innovating. They're simply letting other companies do the research and innovation and adopting best practices (eventually). That's no way to catch up.
Give me something new.
It's a small niche but here's an idea. Give me search with regular expressions. Let me search case sensitive (I'd still like to know how many websites user Internet vs internet...but have no way of researching that easily)
Give me an option to exculde blogs from the main search... Keep some sort of flag on websites if they're transactional or informational (assuming any navigational results would still remain on top) and offer me to filter my results based on that..
oh, and label your sponsored results at the top as sponsored results... and remove the onclick from the actual box and put it just on the link. What happens if I just want to highlight text from it?
This is getting long, and you've got plenty to go on. We'll have a followup meeting next week to check on your progress.
Here's some of the things I've noticed from watching people search:
1.) A lot of people who say "Engine doesn't have the sites I want" are the same people who can't tell the difference between organic and sponsored results - they just randomly click the first result.
Don't believe me? Bid $100/click on the word "home" and put jibberish in your ad. Within minutes you'll have hundreds of clicks anyway.
2.) Many people just don't know how to search. If you're searching for "Jaguar" you're going to see results for animals, cars, sports teams etc.. You need to clarify. Many people search for these broad terms then claim the search engine sucks.
Net2map shows simply the way...
http://www.net2map.org/en/index.html
The mobile Live Local is pretty cool. It shows location with phone numbers for businesses, that let a smartphone just call the number from the search results. That's pretty cool.
Microsoft is then what... 5, 10 years behind still?
Plus, Microsoft has a tendency to want to cram as much info in a page as possible, whereas, Google has a minimalistic approach.
For me to switch to ANY other search engine, it would have to offer something more, which it doesn't.
Plus, Google is the defacto standard. Nobody cares about other search engines anymore.
Try it... search for one of you own recent tracking numbers. I don't remember this in search.msn.com does anyone?
For example, a search for Durham, NC automatically gives a link to Google Maps. Similarly, a search for "Chicago jobs" automatically throws up a search box for jobs by category in the Chicago area. Ain't that cool ?
And then, there's Google Scholar et. al ...
MSN may have improved, but is still wayyyy behind Google ...
Try something like "Georg Jensen" or even a more generic term such as vintage or antique silver. Google has improved the results on that so that it's no longer a dozen pages of eBay that don't even lead to the search item, but Live gives me what I know are many of the top sites and usually in descending order.
On the gazillion collector and shopper searches done regularly, eBay corrupted Google searches a lot.
Vera
The problem here, is that MS’s business plan seems to still be “lets be as good as google.”
The main problem is, they’re not innovating. They’re simply letting other companies do the research and innovation and adopting best practices (eventually). That’s no way to catch up."
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I think MS was the first to have algebraic searches, and related searches. And they have the scratchpad for image searches, soon to be made available for all searches (according to internet rumor). And they had the single-page infinite scroll (fine, they tested it and it didn't work, but it was still innovative; it's still used for their image search).
You're just unaware of what MS is doing.
Google's not done much innovating lately besides buyouts, and they've done NOTHING to improve their search; it's the same as it was years ago, only with worse results as time goes on.
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LOLOLOL
"Trust?" For a web search engine?? Why would I, or anyone need to "trust" a search engine? You try a search and see what the results are. Unless you're referring to Google's storing all of your searches so they can profile you so as to feed you pointless ads; maybe that's what you "trust" Google to do. I don't waste time "trusting" something as inconsequential as a search engine.
That said, recently, I have made about 1/3 of my searches on live.com. The reason is that the results are very good, but often significantly (and usefully) different than google.
I would say that live.com would be a huge success if they could reach 25% search share.
Now that's what I call impressive. Of course, it might be related to the fact that I am on Blogger, but it is still impressive.
But on the flipside, Google has gotten all noised-up, blog and Wiki city, it's half worthless for me. It's not really a search engine, it's an advertising engine. Lexis/Nexis and Westlaw, ok now that's a search engine...
Live seems slower than a one-legged locust...and to quote that FBI guy from 'Prison Break', the problem with being on the trail, is that you will always be behind...it always feels "me too".
Google can't do applications and UI's, Microsoft can (halfway), but should just stop trying to outdo Google, Apple and Sony, and focus on their core strengths. It really only provides for an endless source of amusement for the public and press, as you watch the geeks acting all faux cool, loaded up with a UMPC or Tablet, Microsoft Smartphone, Zune, 360 with HD-DVD add-on's, doing Windows Live tricks with a straight face even -- this while spending billions of shareholders money in never-ending futile pursuits, worshipping the Gods of Failure. Well, it also keeps Wilcox and Gartenberg gainfully employed...
However there's certainly lots more intelligence and knowledge that needs to be developed, e.g., local live is abysmal on address searches, even for London!
What are you talking about? This page here?
http://search.live.com
That is a bare bones page. It has less text than Google's, and while it has a couple of extra graphics, they are smaller than Google's huge logo -- I bet the number bytes works out to be similar. And sure, it does a redirect, but so does Google. I type 'google.com' and it redirects me to google.ca.
Google's page does load faster, but the difference is very very minimal. I wouldn't even ascribe it to the content of the pages. I think Google's servers farm is just faster.
Force of habit keeps me on Google but it's good to have Live as a second opinion, plus I have the other plug-in search providers.
Can you give some examples? Or are you just regurgitating Silicon-Valley doctrine?
Also, as mentioned in the mini-msft blog foriegn language results seems iffy.
It gives me all relevant video results from ALL video services, compared to Google's Video search, which only searches Google Video(and soon I am sure YouTube).
However what kind of Search Engine only shows results from one website(their own)? Well that is what Google Video Search does.
Switched to Windows Live Video search.
Its wonderful to be an user and keep switching to whatever works, isnt it? Especially if you dont have a cost attached to it. :-)
You asked what can Microsoft do to hurt Google. I'm surprised, coming from MS that you don't acknowledge the obvious: 95% of Google's customers come to the via Windows. By making search integrated into the Vista OS, defaulting to live,com and bypassing the browser, MS -- just by providing search results that are "good enough" for most customers -- can put a big dent in Google's revenue. Could be why Google is trying so desperately to diversify their product offerings beyond browser-based search.
People make such a big deal about Google Office taking aim at Microsoft's major source of income, while never acknowledging just how vulnerable Google's single source of income is.
Look at the search result for [cheap fares]. It's full of bogus affiliate blogspot blogs all owned by the same person (who's probably raking in over $10k/day based on that one term alone). The technical term for this is "pwned". :)
I can honestly say that in my years at Google, I don't think anyone has asked me for that feature, and I'm a heavy user of the calculator feature. :)
It took me a few days to even accept Live's search results without checking the same query on Google!