Microsoft goes Live with search, gets sexier, drops extraneous Windowsgadgets, customer adventures, search engines — by TDavid @ 11:05 am PST
New!
 (Hmm, no ratings yet) Loading ... |
Beta is over for Microsoft’s Live search and Live Mobile services:
Extensive feedback and ongoing testing of each beta service has led to marked improvements in the user interface and the overall customer experience. These Windows Live milestones represent the first of several more to come this fall that will demonstrate Microsoft’s commitment to building and delivering services that bring new levels of control and personalization to the Web experience.
Good to see Microsoft dropping the beta label on a couple Live products. I’ve been trying out some different Live.com searches and so far they are ok. Wish it didn’t ask me to login before I could use it but I understand that’s the personalization thing in play. Yahoo asks me to login to their services too much too. I have good security on my machine and don’t need babysitting by third parties.
Better use of vertical browser space than MSN Search:
They are treating some of our newer websites better than Google, but are nowhere on the map as far as traffic for our busier, more established sites. Also noticed they dropped the neverending scrollbars to eliminate pagination which annoyed at least one beta tester. Would be nice to see that feature at least being an option. Wendy over at Lifehacker is running a poll asking: do you or will you use Live search?
Live services still in public beta (have I missed any?):
Live Academic Search - academic research
Live Gallery - download free add-ons and extensions to personalize your Windows Live and PC experiences
Live Local - get local direction
Live Desktop Mail - Mail
Live Mail - web-based mail, not sure this one is public, as at least I can’t signup for it.
Live Messenger - IM, chat
Live Products Search - product search and comparison
Office Live - Small business hosting and Office document collaboration
Live Writer - Desktop blogging client
Questions about mature topics, anyone?
Live QnA - I’ve tested this one extensively and it’s similar to the popular Yahoo Answers. Here’s breaking news for Microsoft, they allow mature content questions and answers! Nothing obscene or vulgar, the details are here:
For the purposes of this Code of Conduct, “mature content” means content that is sexually explicit or content that discusses violent acts in explicit detail. Postings tagged as mature content are filtered from your view by default. If you wish to view mature content, go to the Settings page and select the option “Do not filter postings tagged as ‘mature content’ on QnA.”
You can see the 46 posts currently tagged as “mature content” with this search (Warning: Not Safe For Work query) after altering your settings.
Is this a first for Microsoft allowing some sort of sexual content on their Live sites? Very interesting development. ‘Sex’ was on my list of 8 things Microsoft could do to better compete with Google in 2006.
Worth repeating what I wrote over the weekend: generally speaking, I like Microsoft’s momentum and push behind getting more sites Live branded sites in the public consciousness.
Their strategy of intentionally moving faster with building, beta testing and deploying Live sites could pay huge dividends competing against Google. Now when will we get to see Live OneNote?
Related Posts- Windows Live Academic beta search launches
- Google to expand email services?
- Google testing free email service: Gmail
- AOL to enter free email space
- What’s considered commercial advertising at the Windows Live Expo?
- GIANT changes by Microsoft
You missed a few of the Live beta things. See http://ideas.live.com for a more complete list. Currently there is a list of betas down the left side. Also see http://feedback.live.com for a complete list of all Live services, all in one place.
FWIW, I love the Live stuff, but the marketing is gutter-rot! Their branding is grade-school at best. No. Their branding is grad-school and highly educated, when it should be grade school and catchy! And their naming is sludge in the bottom of a septic tank. They have *lots* of work to do to come across cleaner and simpler to the masses. Most non-technical thinking people are just confused. That’s their target, but for some reason, they’re just lost. I think they know where they are, just not where they are going. It’s just a garbled mess. And, that’s coming from a big fan!
Live OneNote would be cool. I wonder what it would look like.
Comment by Toby Getsch — September 12, 2006 @ 11:37 am PST
Toby - thanks for linking the feedback list, I wasn’t aware of that one (ideas live is linked above to some of the products, so knew about that one), but some of those in that list don’t appear to be in public beta, yes/no? My list wasn’t intended to be all inclusive but to include only those Live services that were in public beta, meaning anybody could sign up for and start using them today.
There are Live services that aren’t listed on the feedback list nor mine that I’ve personally seen up at Redmond (NDA prevents me from saying anything further). The Live list is going to be long.
Comment by TDavid — September 12, 2006 @ 11:56 am PST
I’m pretty sure that any of the betas listed from the ideas.live site are public beta. If not, at the least you can follow those links and then get those blogs to learn more about them.
Comment by Toby Getsch — September 12, 2006 @ 12:10 pm PST
BTW, not knowing what is a public beta or a private beta or an invitation only beta… That’s a silly demonstration of a product and a silly way to get the word out and get public buy-in. Yeah, they have a lot of work to do. A lot.
Comment by Toby Getsch — September 12, 2006 @ 1:32 pm PST
Though these aren’t official descriptions, Toby, this is how I tend to define them:
public beta - anybody can automatically sign up, download and try the software. There’s nothing wrong with these betas (unless they start charging for them). Some companies release new products and never leave beta. Perpetual beta. I like to review products/services/websites in this stage because readers can then try out themselves and be their own judge.
internal beta - only beta testing by the company and its employees and perhaps family of employees
private beta - select people are invited and this may or may not include a NDA prohibiting discussion about the beta, can be at a very early stage of a product’s life cycle.
invite-only beta - select people are invited and given an allotment of invites to invite other friends. Companies say this is a way for them to scale to the users, but it seems more like a cheap scheme to get people to want it more because it’s not open to the masses like a public beta.
Hope that helps
Comment by TDavid — September 12, 2006 @ 2:13 pm PST
That’s a great list of descriptions. I agree with all of them.
Now, when a company has a beta, if you could just get them all to use those terms and to clearly mark where the product is in that spectrum, and also to let me know where I am in that spectrum if I’m already signed in (Passport.net, etc.). That’s the problem. It’s not our definitions. It’s a lack of standards and implementations of those standards that make it super-confusing for any average user. I’d bet that most people don’t even know if they are using beta products or not. Reading EULA’s is so 1998!
BTW, I’m still really annoyed that “they” took away “no pagination” from Live.com. I so want it back! It’s well past any sort of one week, new software test.
I just want it back. (TDavid, I’m not ranting to you, just on your post and about this conversation….)
Comment by Toby Getsch — September 28, 2006 @ 8:41 am PST