What are MSN Proud about with their new search?

Probably not what you think.

[Receptional]

Just returned from a big show where I sidled up to the MSN stand and "asked them what was cool about their new search engine".

Did they talk about quality of results? - No.

They were REALLY proud that they had built encarta into the results, that they could tell you the population of Kansas and other fancy "Jeeves like" things.

They are positively NOT talking about the integrity of the natural SERPS (from a marketing perspective at least). They also showed absolutely no understanding of "influencers on the web" as they left at least two highly regarded "originals" of the search world dumped outside their party for over 40 minutes. The two guys are not happy chappies (One or both are Mods in here), and since one has a heavy German accent and the other a heavy Swedish accent in the middle of New York it was fairly obvious they weren't turning up from around the corner on the off-chance!

I am sure that when MSN comes to New Orleans they will take a bit more care to appreciate their audience, who will be very tech savvy and very knowledgable about the players in the game, but in the meantime, it is not just the technology by which MSN will be judged here, but also the way in which they respect people I think.

In regards to search engine quality though, I also took the chance to talk to a senior Google engineer. He certainly doesn't think "MSN has a long way to go". He thinks they have a strong product - but (luckily for Google) that the spammers can still wipe it out at the moment in the same way google was pretty well nuked six months ago.

So - in summary - MSN has fairly good relevency in less competitive areas, but the marketing department is way off the relevency planet in terms of ots focus, leaving Google holding the high ground in that regard - whether they deserve it or not.

Apart from that - great party. Thanks MSN - loved the girl under the table...

Dixon.

[ThomasB]

I also noticed the focus on the Encarta integration. If any other SE wants to do the same, they simply use Wikipedia and have immediately the same feature MSN is so proud of.

I had the chance to talk to a MSN engineer about Desktop search and it looks like they're planning sth big to come in the next weeks/months. They really have to bring out sth quite good if they want to compete with Google and Yahoo!.

The one thing I really liked about the MSN folks is the fact that they hardly have any clue about what they should say in public and what they shouldn't. I just remember discussions about post-processing the results, weighting of on-page-factors, ... Pretty funny people they are.

I have to agree with the party problem. I think it's not hard to identify who might be affected by the 40 minutes waiting time, but I was really surprised seeing even SEMPO board members waiting outside. That made me feel a bit better, though it was ridiculous imho.

[webhound]

They are promoting the encarta to get the hook in you.

Typical of M.

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[LongView]

also the way in which they respect people I think.

Well, keeping in mind that each individual person is really just reflecting their own good or bad personality traits .... maybe those particular guys at the booth weren't the all stars of "giving a sht". I did get phenomenal service from Microsoft recently when purchasing their software and needing a replacement, as well as a full refund. They even called me several times after to make sure I got it done, done correctly, and verify that I was happy. It almost got annoying how into service they were... but I appreciated it immensely. On the downside, they are outsourcing all their tech support to India and its a miserable failure trying to communicate with anyone out there at all, even in basic, plain english. This is all somewhat off topic, but the point is, when you have a million people working for your company, one individual experience shouldn't necessarily be labeled representative of the whole company. Yes I know "They are representing microsoft". But you get the point :)

Your feedback is useful though, and their complete lack of attention to some of the big names in the Search Engine world is extremely scary to me.

~LV

[mfishy]

I hear ya, but in their defense, Google and Yahoo speak mostly about new products/features these days as well, rather than their core search. Also, I doubt they are really too "proud" of their new search yet :)