When you read about Microsoft's grand plans to make their "Live Search" the default search engine on the Web, you first think they are going to develop some improved algorithm that gives better results than their competitors' engines do. Then you open up your Hotmail to find a message like this:




Earn FREE rewards for something you do every day ?
search the Web!

Xbox® 360 controllers. Music downloads. Frequent flyer miles. Because we appreciate your use of Microsoft® Live Search, we'd
like to share with you an opportunity to earn tickets towards these and other exciting prizes when you join SearchPerks! from Microsoft.

? It's rewarding: Earn tickets toward exciting prizes for the Web
searches you do on properties powered by Live Search. Whether
it's on Live.com, MSN.com, Windows Live? Hotmail®, or Windows
Live Messenger.

? It's easy: With one simple download, we count your searches
automatically and award valuable tickets for each one,
up to 25 a day.

? It's brought to you by Microsoft Live Search: So you know
you won't compromise quality while earning rewards.



MSFT's problem in search (and the Web in general) is that they are primarily a proprietary software company. They think of all other businesses as ways to extend and maintain their dominance in operating system, Web browser, and office suite software.




Who can forget visiting MSN or MSNBC and being pushed to use Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player? Of the site rejecting users of the Opera Web browser? What was this about? It was about extending and maintaining the dominance of Microsoft's proprietary software.




Microsoft has had a similar problem in the search arena: their search results appeared to be skewed toward their own products and services, with scant mention of competing software and services. Granted, this was before the unveiling of Live Search. Now, with Live Search, I see that their MSNbot is one of the more active search spiders collecting information about sites.




Their search results are getting better and becoming less biased, but still generally worse than the results obtained using either Google or Yahoo! search.




For some people, paying them to use Live Search may work for a time. But eventually, most of them will leave again--It's the results, stupid!




If Microsoft wants to be seriously competitive in search, there are a few things they must do, most of which are antithetical to their whole proprietary emphasis:





  1. Advertising and search results must be clearly distinguishable. We understand that your search is ad-supported. But make sure that searchers can easily tell the difference between "sponsored results" and true search results.

  2. Search results should be unbiased. Be honest: Windows Vista is a giant turd. Make sure that honest evaluations of Vista's failings show up early in search results for the operating system. I realize that this will step on some toes within Microsoft, but maybe it will motivate someone to throw out the NT codebase and build the next version of Windows on NetBSD or a similar substrate.

  3. People come to Live Search to search. They come to MSN for news, information, and entertainment. They do not come there specifically to see your sponsors' ads. Therefore, never allow an advertisement to obstruct or interfere with the content that draws people to your site. I would extend this to ads that distract site visitors, such as the dancing cowboys ad and others that flash and move a lot; or which attempt to confuse or deceive them, such as the one that looks like a Windows application and says something like "You are user #7513. You win! Click here!"

  4. The age of a single operating system, browser, or media player dominating the market are coming to a close. People use many different systems, so everything you do should work equally well in any modern, standards-compliant product, including browsers such as lynx, which doesn't have display graphics or use scripting. This includes Microsoft's Hotmail service, which tries to get me to change browsers when I use Firefox, Opera, Epiphany, Flock, Konqueror, Kazehakase, or other modern browsers.

  5. Stop thinking that all Live Search needs is to buy Yahoo!'s share to be competitive. Remember that Live Search is the default search in the most widely-used browser that comes with the most widely-used operating system that comes with almost every computer you buy. Even when I change the search preference, the next person logging in still has Live Search as his or her default search. No, Microsoft's search woes are not due to anything other than 1 through 4, above. The situation will only change when those points above change. Whether MSFT buys YHOO or AOL or both,




I sincerely hope that Microsoft will begin to follow the above advice, including basing the next iteration of their software on NetBSD or a similar OS, especially if they release the resulting product under licensing that is compatible with free / libre and open source software. It would be nice to have real competition in search again. But this will not happen if search is subverted to support the agenda of a maker of proprietary software. Maybe then, Live Search will be a contender, part of a group of five to ten search engines with significant market share.