Windows Live Search: some things I really like

This is one of those posts where I have to state my biases up front because people tend to have strong opinions about it.

Like everyone, I've always liked to use Google. I started using the site pretty much when it first appeared on my radar, and like everyone else I was shocked by the quality of results that were returned, by its clean interface and by the critical mass of people who liked it. Heck, I follow crowds as much as the next guy, and if everyone was using Google to the extent that "to google" is part of our lexicon, then it has to have some strong points.

But I'm also a loyal and proud Microsoft employee of over six years tenure. When Steve Baller stood up at the Microsoft Company Meeting and told us 'softies that by using Google we were subsidizing our competition, I felt a responsibility to use our search product. And I'm posting today to talk about some of the features of Windows Live Search that I really like.

The most important thing for me is to have to click a minimal number of times. So if I want to get information on a specific topic, I like my search engine to give me a quick view into that information immediately. Following are a few examples of why I find Live Seatch is better than Google. Click along and then share your thoughts. Note that these thoughts reflect my opinions alone and do not in any way reflect any implicit or explicit endorsement by Microsoft Corporation.

Search for Seattle Mariners. Google gives links. Live Search gives the team's record and latest game results.
Search for Ichiro Suzuki. Google gives links. Live Search gives you his stats.
Search for David Beckham. Google and Live Search give pictures, including one each that are slightly NSFW. Google also gives news results.
Search for Seattle traffic. Google gives links. Live Search gives a very fancy and nicely scrollable look at the actual Seattle traffic.
Search for msft. Google and Live Search give roughly the same results.
Search for msft goog amzn Google has one click access to the info. Live Search has trouble parsing the string. And yuck, google is the top result.
Search for pizza 98052 (the zip code for the Microsoft corporate campus) Google gives a nice map with three results. Live search gives just the three results
Search for New Zealand map. Google gives three results. Live search gives five.
Search for News G8 summit. Google and Live search both give three articles.

Obviously you could play at this all day, and it's tempting to do so. What I found interesting was that the two sites are pretty darn comparable. I love the enhanced traiifc map while you might like looking up your whole stock portfolio at the same time.

What do you think?

Comments

• Anonymous
  September 18, 2007
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  November 14, 2007
  searching for "london time" now gives you the current local time in london thanks :)