Microsoft took the addresses off the drop release of its Live Search engine on September 26 at its invitation-only Searchification occasion for press and analysts.I wasn;t there, but like countless,
Genuine Office 2010, I was briefed and embargoed about what;s new within the drop update. (The embargoes ended at midnight EST.) I;ve posted some display shots of a few of the new Live Search enhancements users can expect to get rolled out as component of the drop release in between now and mid-October.There weren;t a whole lot of surprises, because of this of an early publish and screen shots from a Microsoft Live Search item manager (subsequently removed) that had been grabbed through the LiveSide.Net web-site. But here are my 5 take-aways about what;s new and what;s coming subsequent from Microsoft within the Reside Lookup arena.1. Microsoft;s search index can be a good deal larger now. Microsoft officials mentioned the Live Lookup index has grown four-fold given that the very first release. (Sadly,
Windows 7 Activation, that number is relatively meaningless, given that Microsoft won;t say how big the original index was.) I've heard from 1 of my contacts that Reside Search is now indexing 20 billion documents. (Update: It seems to be like Microsoft decided to begin spreading the 20 billion figure around.) ButI heard from another source that it;s thirty billion. In both case, it;s a whole lot extra comparable to Google;s index, in terms of coverage and ranking of documents in the index.
2. Reside Search;s relevancy is noticeably improved. “The important component of this is what shows on web page 1 (of lookup results), and right here Microsoft have manufactured the advances in relevance they have been talking about for the past couple of years,” stated Chris Overd, one with the principals with LiveSide.Net. “This makes today;s beta release of Live Lookup a very much stronger competitor to Yahoo and Google.”
3. Microsoft is focusing on improving search in 4 verticals with this release. These are: shopping, entertainment, health and local/maps. Microsoft estimates 10 percent of consumer lookup queries are entertainment-related and among three and five percent are health-related. There was a reason (essentially some of them) that Microsoft bought the Medstory health-search engine. Microsoft officials say they will add far more verticals to their focus with each subsequent Reside Lookup release.4. Speaking of subsequent releases,
Microsoft Office 2010 Standard, Microsoft is sticking to its plans to do a significant spring and a drop release every year of Reside Lookup,
Microsoft Office 2007 Pro, with incremental updates coming in in between. The spring release, according to Reside Lookup General Supervisor Derrick Connell,
Microsoft Office 2010 Professional, will bring enhancements about “community.” (He wouldn;t elaborate.) This doesn;t sound like tagging/social bookmarking kinds of stuff, as Connell told me that Microsoft made the decision those features appealed to too small a percentage with the potential user base. Maybe we;ll see extra peer reviews/recommendations across areas beyond shopping…? Just a guess…. And what about rumors I had heard regarding Live Search allowing users to search their Outlook e-mail? “There;s a tie-in there,” Connell stated, and Microsoft will have additional to say about it later.
5. Microsoft is still kicking about the idea of probably rebranding Reside Lookup. “Live it!” just doesn;t have the ring of “Google It!” Connell told me Microsoft “will continue to look at branding.” No hints on what Microsoft ultimately might use as the new name, however.What do you think of what Microsoft;s done with search this go-around? Do you think its enhancements will give it any kind of traction against Google and Yahoo?