Live Search Demo

Yesterday I ran into the new Live Search Demo on MSN.com, and I am impressed by the amount of details they put into their work. We all now that Live search is still lagging behind Google and Yahoo because they were late in the game and their search results are as accurate (or I should say updated) as Google. But they have manage to create some nice features and they are still adding more and more stuff.

xRank: This might be useful for a lot of people who wants to know what’s the latest buzz on celebrities. They show a chart with the xRank for any celebrity over time and related celebrities.

Health Search: I usually can’t find any relevant health results on any search engines (most of the results are just forums and questions). If Live can get this to work as it needs, it can be a major player in the health search field. I’ll keep an eye on this.

Video Search: Nice layout and you can play the videos directly from the search results (Just hover the mouse over the thumb nail).

Local and Maps: I don’t see the needs to separate these two search features since all local searches revolved around a location, the Maps in Live looks better than Google (in my opinion) and far better resolutions in many areas.

Shopping: Live used their large user network to power their Shopping search by adding reviews and comments. Nice feature for general shopping.

Image Results (The best): Live Images Search are far better than any search engine in relevancy and display. Since I do a lot of graphic design, I usually look for references on the web. Google usually return limited number of relevant pictures and a lot of unwanted stuff. However, Live Images Search is producing a lot better results. Also, I love their never ending display, all the images show up in one page (no need to click next and wait). I’ll give Live 10 out of 10 for their Images Search.

Translator: This is a copy of Google feature that allow you to translate pages. I used Google translation and the results were okay, so I’ll try this and see if it’s any better.

Mobile: Hardly use it, it came in handy once when I was looking for a Chinese restaurant. Everyone expects mobile search to be big in the next few years, but when that time comes most mobile phones will be able to run a full browser.

 You can try their demos and see how they work. It might be another reason for you to switch to Live!