Microsoft to launch "Windows Live" search engine
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Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O plans to   officially launch on Tuesday its new Windows Live Search   engine, a pillar in its strategy to topple market leader Google   GOOG.O and wrestle away billions of dollars worth of online   advertising.
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Microsoft released the second version of its Windows Live Mobile Search application on Friday, including some new features for both the standalone and Web-based versions of the client.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft is removing the beta, or test, tag from Live Search, its next-generation search engine, and making it the underlying search tool at its MSN.com portal. The move comes as Microsoft anxious attempts to gain traction in the search engine market, where it remains a distant third behind leader Google and Yahoo. Because search engine-based advertising is a fast-growing, multibillion-dollar business, Microsoft has invested heavily in improving its search tools and accompanying ad network. But it has failed to make a dent in Google's dominance. In June, Google nabbed 45 percent of all search engine queries in the U.S., while Yahoo got 29 percent and Microsoft 13 percent, according to comScore Networks. This represents a market share reduction for Microsoft of almost 3 percentage points from June 2005. The enhancements in Live Search are notable but many of them are available from other providers, so they aren't likely to boost Microsoft's market share in any significant way, said analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence. "Microsoft has to exceed Google's capabilities, not just match them," Sterling said. "Search engine usage is fairly habitual right now. Microsoft has to come up with dramatic innovations and create an obviously better search experience. That's difficult given the fierce competition." From Tuesday to Thursday, Microsoft will replace the current MSN Search engine on MSN.com with Live Search, which features a revamped image search service, an improved local search, a redesigned user interface and new tools to refine query results, said Derrick Connell, general manager of the Microsoft search business unit. The change will take place progressively on different MSN host servers. When users run a search on MSN.com, they will be taken to a Live Search results page on the Live.com domain, but there will be links there to guide users back to the MSN.com portal, he said. Live SearchÂ went into public beta testingÂ in March at Live.com, the home page of the Live-branded initiative Microsoft launched last year to boost its software-as-a-service offerings. Live.com is also exiting its beta status this week. Among the enhancements in Live Search are new options to view full-size photos in image search results and an increased number of "bird's eye" aerial images in local search, which is shedding its beta label in its U.S. and the U.K. services. Live Search also features a new social search service called QnA, in which users can pose questions and have others chime in with answers. Yahoo, Google and others have similar question-and-answer search services.
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A beta version of the search engine Microsoft Corp. is developing went live Thursday, offering users an interface and a set of features that make the product begin to resemble established search engines from competitors Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Ask Jeeves Inc. and America Online Inc. (AOL).
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Microsoft&#39;s MSN division is planning to make an announcement today related to online-search technology, giving rise to expectations that the company will begin offering its own Internet search engine tomorrow.
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New York - Microsoft Corp will roll out its long-awaited internet search service on Thursday, adding fresh competition to Google Inc, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft Corp. is removing the beta, or test, tag from Live Search, its next-generation search engine, and making it the underlying search tool at its MSN.com portal. The move comes as Microsoft anxious attempts to gain traction in the search engine market, where it remains a distant third behind leader Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. Because search engine-based advertising is a fast-growing, multibillion-dollar business, Microsoft has invested heavily in improving its search tools and accompanying ad network. But it has failed to make a dent in Google's dominance. In June, Google nabbed 45 percent of all search engine queries in the U.S., while Yahoo got 29 percent and Microsoft 13 percent, according to comScore Networks Inc. This represents a market share reduction for Microsoft of almost 3 percentage points from June 2005. From Tuesday to Thursday, Microsoft will replace the current MSN Search engine on MSN.com with Live Search, which features a revamped image search service, an improved local search, a redesigned user interface and new tools to refine query results, said Derrick Connell, general manager of the Microsoft search business unit. The change will take place progressively on different MSN host servers. When users run a search on MSN.com, they will be taken to a Live Search results page on the Live.com domain, but there will be links there to guide users back to the MSN.com portal, he said. Live Search went intoÂ public beta testing in March at Live.com, the home page of the Live-branded initiative Microsoft launched last year to boost its software-as-a-service offerings. Live.com is also exiting its beta status this week. Among the enhancements in Live Search are new options to view full-size photos in image search results and an increased number of "bird's eye" aerial images in local search, which is shedding its beta label in its U.S. and the U.K. services. Live Search also features a new social search service called QnA, in which users can pose questions and have others chime in with answers. Yahoo, Google and others have similar question-and-answer search services. Â
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Microsoft's unveils improved Live Search but we've seen most of it before.
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Microsoft is launching a new look for some of itâs Live Search results in an attempt to win more of the search business from Google.
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Google has released a customized version of IE 7 that replaces Windows Live Search with Google as the default search engine.
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Microsoft will introduce its long-awaited Internet search engine on Thursday, a person knowledgeable about the announcement said.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has added the ability for subscribers of its Office Live small-business hosted service to purchase paid-search advertising from Ask.com from directly within the service. Now small businesses using the Office Live service can use the adManager feature of the product, which is in beta, to purchase search-based keyword advertising from Ask Sponsored Listings, Microsoft said. Customers already can purchase paid-search advertising from the Microsoft's MSN network and Live Search from within the product. Ask Sponsored Listings is an automated, open-auction system that allows for the purchase and management of pay-per-click and contextual advertising campaigns on a publisher network that includes Ask.com. According to the site, 48,000 advertisers use the system to bid on more than 25 million keywords. Last week at the Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver, a company manager said Microsoft would begin adding the ability to purchase ads for third-party search engines to Office Live, which gives small businesses tools for building a Web site as well as Web-based e-mail, instant messaging, collaboration, and customer relationship management, in the next two months. Ask.com is the first such partnership. Microsoft unveiled Office Live in November 2005 as part of a broad strategy to offer more hosted and Web-based services, and the company has high hopes for the offering. Last week at the WPC, Microsoft Chief COO Kevin Turner said that the company expects it to eventually become on of its top-selling products, ranking near the top of the heap with the Windows client OS and Office desktop suite.
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Windows Live Search Replacing MSN Search By Thursday, MSN Search will be no more. Windows Live Search will replace it around the globe. Microsoft is also taking the &#8220;beta&#8221; label off Live, Live Search and Live Local tonight. Chris Sherman&#8217;s column in SearchDay tomorrow is about Live Search. I&#8217;ll be writing a couple of posts about Live [...]
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Late yesterday, Microsoft dropped the "beta" term from Windows Live Search, officially launching the search engine as a 1.0 service.  Missing is some of the glitz that characterized its earlier releases from back in November, but can the simplified Live Search better compete with Google?
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Never shy about arriving late, Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq - news - research) is expected to launch a new version of its search service Thursday as the software titan seeks a stronger spot in that lucrative corner of Internet advertising.
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Microsoft Corp. plans to roll out a preview version of its new Internet search service on Thursday, according to a media report. Free!
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft is joining Ask.com in offering Web surfers a way to use its search engines anonymously, and the two companies are now calling on the search and online advertising industry to develop a common set of privacy practices. By year's end, Microsoft will give users a way to search anonymously on its Microsoft Windows Live Web sites, and it will also implement a new data retention policy that after 18 months will scrub all search query data of any information that could be used to identify the searcher. "We think that we as an industry ought to take a look at ways to further enhance privacy protections," said Microsoft Chief Privacy Strategist Peter Cullen. "We're really trying to make sure that people always have the ability to have a trusted experience." These steps areÂ similar to those taken by Ask.comÂ last week and are part of an effort to create industry consensus on privacy practices, Cullen said. When visitors use Microsoft's Windows Live search engine, Microsoft stores the search queries along with some information on the person doing the searching in order to provide them with targeted advertising. Like all the major search providers, Microsoft doesn't associate names or e-mail addresses with this data, but it does keep IP (Internet Protocol) addresses and some other identifying information, such as the zip codes of Windows Live users. Privacy advocates are concerned that this data could be misused. "Search terms are often about drugs, they're about sex and they're about rock and roll," said Peter Swire, a law professor with Ohio State University who was the White House's Chief Counselor for Privacy under the Clinton administration. "There are a lot of people who are feeling that they're doing a private exploration and wouldn't want their search terms as part of their permanent record." Last year, AOLÂ researchers inadvertently illustrated how this data could be misused when theyÂ posted data on about 650,000 searchesÂ made on the company's Web site. New York Times reporters were able to track down one of the searchers based on the information in the database. Ask.com and Microsoft's announcements put pressure on Google to improve its privacy practices, Swire said. Google retains part of the IP address associated with searches and has not promised to provide anonymous searching, he explained. It is becoming even more important for companies to safeguard consumers' privacy as the online advertising and search industries consolidate, Swire said. Both Microsoft and Google have made major moves in this space over the past few months with their plannedÂ acquisitions of aQuantiveÂ andÂ DoubleClick. More pressure is coming from the European Union, which has placed limits on the amount of time search companies can retain this type of data and isÂ reviewing Google's DoubleClick acquisition. Microsoft and Ask.com will invite privacy advocates and Internet search and advertising companies such as Google, AOL, and Yahoo to come together and more clearly explain how the industry will handle privacy. "The first step is, we'll be in contact with all the other players in this space and talk about what a summit might look like," said Cullen. "We're very happy to host it, if that's the answer ... both Microsoft and Ask.com think that this is the time to make this happen." The two companies expect to report on the results of this outreach by September. That's right around the time that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is expected to host a workshop discussing these same issues, Swire said. "Now we're getting public debate and corporate debate on best practices. And the FTC will be trying to push that this fall." Â