NYTimes.com Article: Microsoft on the Trail of Google

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

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From: dave () farber net
Date: July 8, 2004 10:17:40 AM EDT
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Subject: NYTimes.com Article: Microsoft on the Trail of Google
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The article below from NYTimes.com
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Microsoft on the Trail of Google

July 8, 2004
 By DAVID POGUE





IT must be fun to walk through the Microsoft parking lot,
reading the bumper stickers on the cars. Can you imagine
what they must say? "Honk if you love monopolies." "Just
because you're paranoid doesn't mean we're not out to get
you." "My other car is a Hummer, too."

But the lawyers' bumper stickers probably say, "You can't
copyright an idea." Despite its admirable if largely
unsuccessful recent efforts to pioneer product categories -
wireless watches, wireless screens and so on - Microsoft's
greatest hits have been clones of other people's successful
work, including Windows (based on the Macintosh), Pocket PC
(PalmPilot) and Internet Explorer (Netscape Navigator).

Last week, Microsoft identified the object of its latest
obsession: Google, the No. 1 Internet search page. (Google,
you may recall, is preparing for an initial stock offering
with an estimated value of $25 billion. Nobody bats around
numbers like that without attracting Microsoft's
attention.)

For years, Microsoft's own Web search page, MSN Search, has
finished a distant third place in the search-engine
popularity wars (behind Google and Yahoo). The company's
new plan is apparently to remake MSN Search in Google's
image.

The Googlification of MSN will occur in two phases. The
first, a cosmetic makeover, is now complete and ready for
your inspection at www.search.msn.com. The new look
consists of an empty white screen that loads blissfully
quickly, even over dial-up connections, and an empty,
neatly centered text box where you're supposed to type in
what you're looking for. The search page is ad-free and,
except for the MSN logo, even devoid of graphics. (On July
4, however, MSN added a waving-flag graphic, an imitation
of the way Google's witty artists dress up its own logo on
holidays.) In short, MSN Search couldn't look more like
Google if you photocopied it.

Once you click Search, you're in for a pleasant surprise:
Microsoft has stopped trying to trick you into clicking on
its advertisers' links, which it used to scatter among the
genuine search results. That approach may be a short-term
money-loser for Microsoft, but it's a huge winner for you.
It's a more honest approach than Yahoo's, in which
advertisers pay Yahoo to ensure that their links appear,
unmarked, among the true search results (a practice called
paid inclusion).

MSN still displays ads, of course, but they're off to the
right side or up above the results list, clearly labeled
"Sponsored Sites" and inside shaded boxes - exactly like
Google's.

Unfortunately, Microsoft calls the separation of
advertising an experiment, not a permanent change in
policy. It seems to be trying on honesty in the mirror to
see if people will find it attractive, rather than
realizing that running a principled business is the way to
win customers' trust. In short, "MSN will continue to
evaluate the potential of paid inclusion to improve
relevancy."

(Let's hope that MSN will also continue to evaluate the
English language, which also includes the perfectly good,
much less annoying noun "relevance.")

In addition to finding text on Web pages, Google and Yahoo
can also find news stories, product prices and so on; MSN
Search offers its own twist on this idea. Just to the right
of the search box, a pop-up menu offers a few intriguing
choices. Some are common to Google and Yahoo (Stock Quotes,
Shopping), but two of them mine unique MSN properties:
Encarta Encyclopedia and Movies.

Movies taps into the MSN Entertainment movie database,
which offers descriptions, ratings and credits for every
movie ever released (and some that haven't been, including
a 2007 listing for "Spider-Man 3"). For current movies, you
can plug in your ZIP code for local showtimes.

The Encyclopedia option, though, is a letdown: it shows you
all of the matching entries from Microsoft's Encarta
software, but many of the articles themselves are off
limits unless you pay $30 a year.

If you're a regular MSN visitor, this overhaul is a
windfall. You woke up one morning last week to find that
the MSN Search page was faster, cleaner and Googler.

But at this point MSN still relies on search technology
licensed from Yahoo. (The search results aren't identical
to Yahoo's, but the family resemblance is unmistakable.)

For many searches, the results are pretty much the same at
Google, Yahoo and MSN Search, which is to say outstanding.
Search for "convert yen to dollars," "divorce statistics
for Brazil," "5-string banjo tuning" or "oh susannah sheet
music," and no matter which of these services you use, the
very first search result is a direct link to the
information you want. (So often is the first listing what
you want, in fact, that you begin to see the appeal of the
"I'm Feeling Lucky" button on Google's home page. If you
click on this instead of the regularly scheduled Search
button, you go straight to the Web page that Google
considers most likely to have your answer, bypassing the
results list entirely.)

But do enough searches, spend enough months, and Google
gradually re-earns its reputation for superior accuracy.
Search for "history of Phillips screwdriver," for example,
and you'll find the answer hiding behind the very first
result on Google and Yahoo-but not until the fourth listing
in MSN Search's results. (Caveat searchor: Search-engine
companies are constantly tinkering with their search
formulas, so your results may not match the ones described
here.)

Similarly, typing "England average income" yields a useful
answer in Link No. 1 on Google's list and No. 3 on Yahoo.
MSN Search doesn't answer the question at all (at least not
on the first couple pages of results).

All right, so the new MSN Search looks like Google but
doesn't work like Google. In that case, what's the point?

That's the idea behind Phase 2 of the MSN Search makeover.
Microsoft is busily refining an all-new search technology
of its own, something the company claims will be even
better than Google's - a "next-generation search
experience," in fact - to replace its licensed Yahoo
software within a year or so.

You can try out Microsoft's extremely early version of this
new search algorithm at techpreview.search.msn.com, but
don't get your hopes up. Microsoft emphasizes that the
preview doesn't search very much of the Web, and isn't
intended to compete with Google or anyone else. Instead,
the point is to collect feedback from "Webmasters and
search enthusiasts."

In that spirit, here's some feedback. First, the tech
preview is very, very slow. Second, it should be more
discerning; if you search for "motorized draperies," 13 of
the first 15 results all come from the same company's Web
site. Third, kill the sense of humor: the first result in a
search for "1963 Oscar winners" is "1998 Oscar winners."
(The actual 1963 winners don't even appear on the first
page of 15 links.) In fact, on many searches that Google
and Yahoo aced - "Richard Nixon's dog," "fertility over 40"
and "Britney wedding photos," for example - the tech
preview's first results page comes up empty-handed.

Even if the searching part worked perfectly, though, MSN
Search would have a ways to go before catching up to the
mature, highly polished application-ishness of its rivals.
Google and Yahoo, for example, can search for photographs
on the Web, not just text. They offer cool shortcuts that
can instantly summon phone numbers, FedEx tracking
information and airline flight data (Google), or the
cheapest local gas, movie showtimes and telephone area-code
identification (Yahoo). And don't underestimate the
informational power of Google's news-group-searching
feature, which plucks out individual words from millions of
Internet bulletin-board discussions.

Even so, Microsoft has done a beautiful job de-gunking its
home page and removing paid ads from your search results.
Will its new search technology attain anything even close
to Google's "relevancy?" It's too soon to tell. But if it's
successful, Microsoft will have demonstrated its
brilliancy, boosted its own importancy and taken another
irreversible step toward world dominancy.

E-mail: Pogue () nytimes com




http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/08/technology/circuits/08stat.html? 
ex=1090296259&ei=1&en=55e6cc50c661c12e


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