After being around for barely more than a year Microsoft is on the verge of releasing a pretty big update to their Live Search. As of right now Microsoft is rolling out a Beta version to select testers, and don’t be surprised if you see a new look the next time you visit Live Search.
One of our readers, Siva, managed to snap a screenshot when he received the enhanced interface. Below I’ve embedded the images that he sent me which demonstrate the old and new Live Search, which from what I can tell is moving to a more Google-like interface. If I covered up the blue navigation bar at the top of the screenshot it would probably be tough to distinguish between the Google and Live Search at first glance.
One of the differences you may notice between the two screenshots is that the results that were returned are different despite searching for the exact same phrase. Has Microsoft finally revamped their search engine to display better results?
Another big change is that the main content is completely centered in the browser, instead of spanning across the entire screen like it used to. I’m sure one of the main purposes of this was to get the sponsored links closer to the content, but I surprisingly like having it all in the middle.
Overall, I really like the new slimmer layout. Siva was using Internet Explorer 7 on Vista when he was “picked” to participate in the Beta test, and I’m sure Microsoft is dishing this out to IE users first. So pull up Live.com, do a search, and let us know if anyone else is seeing the new design!
Thanks again to Siva for the tip and the screenshots!
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Tags: Web Sites, Beta, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Screenshots, Search
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Wow way to copy Google,hope you get the pant sued off you Microsoft!
Well, I don’t think a lawsuit is going to happen given how AOL had copied Yahoo without any reprecussions:
http://cybernetnews.com/2007/0.....esitation/
Even the front page looks similar to Google’s. But I do got to admit it is a nice and clean interface, that Google brought to the web when it first launched so I really don’t blame Microsoft of copying that.
AOL without any sham copied Yahoo’s they didn’t even bother change some minor stuff around.
Well i never used windows live search but i was not too displeased with look and feel of the old live.com. But as they say Follow the leader. :p
If there is ever one instance of copying that will forever be embedded in my mind it is that. I just can’t get over it.
The old layout wasn’t all that bad, but it just took up more room in the header than it needed to. The new layout kind of condenses everything down, and not to mention the results that are being returned are different than normal.
Am I the only one who reckons that the old version actually looked better. This new one basically just says “yeh, you’re using Google with a worse database and algorithm” wheras at least the old one had easy switching between the different search varieities.
I actually like how the new one looks, and I don’t think you can really judge the search algorithm until we actually see it in action. I’ll admit that their current algorithm sucks worse than a vacuum, but the results being returned in the new screenshot are significantly different.
Regardless as to how their new algorithm works I still doubt it will be as good as Google’s, and they’ve just thrown away anything else original about their search tool. The only people using it now will be die-hard M$ fans and people who don’t look at the check boxes when installing Messenger who end up with it as their default page.
So that accounts for about 75% of computer users.