Microsoft Corp.’s new search engine
includes a “near me” button that helps users find Web sites for
a given location and a feature that answers questions such as
“What is the capital of Turkey?”
Available Thursday and developed over 18 months by Microsoft’s
MSN unit to challenge Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc., the search
function also lets users request the newest or most popular Web
pages be listed first. A search for a rock band returns a
description of the group and playable versions of its top songs
from MSN’s music service.
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“It’s a promising start,” said Chris Sherman, president of
Searchwise, a Boulder, Colo.-based Internet-search consulting
firm, who tried Microsoft’s test version. “They are definitely
in the same league with Google and Yahoo with this.”
Microsoft’s product has some features that Google and Yahoo
don’t, such as answering questions. Microsoft is betting its
search engine will overtake Google and boost advertising revenue
at MSN, which became profitable for the first time last year.
Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft may find it easier to match
Google’s technology than its popularity, Sherman said.
“The big challenge for Microsoft isn’t technology — it’s
mindshare,” Sherman said. “Even if Microsoft comes up with
something technologically close, and I think they have here, they
need to change what people use.”
Six-year-old Google, which went public in August in a $1.92
billion offering, is the most-used search engine, with 65.1
million people using the site in September to navigate the Web.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based company brought in $1.47
billion in search revenue last year and accounts for about 36
percent of searches, according to ComScore Networks, which tracks
Web use. MSN’s existing search, which is based on Yahoo!
technology, had 14 percent.
The Web page is: http://beta.search.msn.com. The new
search is the first based on Microsoft’s own technology.
One of the goals of the test is to make sure that the search
can expand to handle the amount of Web traffic, Sohn said. At 11
a.m. New York time Thursday, some queries to the site brought up a
page that said the service was “temporarily unavailable.” Other
search requests worked.
MSN is looking into reasons for the lapse and the site may
experience similar difficulties “from time to time” because it
is a test product, MSN Product Manager Justin Osmer said in a
statement.
The “near me” button will return results in the user’s
geographic area only, said Adam Sohn, public relations director for MSN’s global marketing and sales.
Google and Yahoo added a similar
feature in the past few months. MSN Search will also let users
ask questions such as the capital of the United States or other
information contained in Microsoft’s Encarta encyclopedia.
“There’s a larger issue going on here of what people are
looking for when they search, and we are trying to deliver
that,” Sohn said in an interview.
Searches often fail because they require customers to sort
through too many Web pages to find information, he said.
For example, if a user asks for the capital of Turkey, a
typical search will probably return both Web pages about Ankara
and Web pages about Thanksgiving turkeys in the U.S. capital,
Washington D.C., Sohn said. The MSN search will recognize that
it’s a question and display just the answer at the top of the
list of search results, followed by related Web pages, he said.
Google and Yahoo don’t have the function. Ask Jeeves Inc.
has a similar product for answering factual questions.
MSN probably won’t surpass Google in popularity for a few
years and may struggle to convince Google fans to switch, said
Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Kirkland, Wash.-based Directions
on Microsoft.
“Based on what I’ve seen so far, it’s not going to be
overnight,” Rosoff said. “The problem is the search tools have
to be so good that people will switch. There’s a low barrier to
get people to try it, but if they don’t like it, they may not go
back for a long time.”
Shifts in search leadership have occurred before, most
recently when Google supplanted Yahoo as the market leader.
Google spokesman David Krane declined to comment, except to
say Google has doubled the number of pages it searches to more
than 8 billion to top MSN’s 5 billion. Yahoo spokeswoman Joanna
Stevens didn’t return phone calls seeking comment.
Microsoft’s search engine took more than 100 developers to
create. Microsoft probably spent between $100 million and $300
million on the project, said Rob Enderle, an analyst at San Jose,
Calif.-based Enderle Group.
Bloomberg News
