Check it out: We realize that often you just need to get a sense of what your query is about. Wikipedia is great for that — you can learn enough from the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article to start you out on the right path. For Wikipedia results, we now show a good portion of the first paragraph and a few links from the table of contents. You can see more about the topic right there and see what else the article offers. We hope...
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Today we informed our partners that we are ending the Live Search Books and Live Search Academic projects and that both sites will be taken down next week. Books and scholarly publications will continue to be integrated into our Search results, but not through separate indexes. This also means that we are winding down our digitization initiatives, including our library scanning and our in-copyright book programs. We recognize that this decision...
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In our last release of Live Search for Windows Mobile we snuck in a little feature that allows users to send feedback directly to the engineering team. Since then, we’ve received tons of messages from users, many of which have been requests for new functionality. So what’s the moral of the story? Ask, and you shall receive. Here’s the list of some of the cool stuff we’ve built in response to user feedback. Weather  By...
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Along with the release of our new search experience, we’d like to give some background into the design team and process that went into all the changes you see. You might not immediately think of design as being a critical part of a search product, but we think it is, and we have a growing team of designers, researchers, and developers who believe it, too. We have a growing, pro-design community here at Microsoft as well (only fitting to plug...
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We’ve introduced our “Renaissance” release of Live Search QnA Beta. Our re-birth signifies the beginning of a new set of features that we’ll continue to grow. We had three goals for this release: Focus on the QnA experience for new users. Encourage users to discover content and functionality in new ways. Highlight and award higher quality content by featuring members who are Top Contributors in given areas of expertise...
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Just when you thought we’d stop at Celebrities, we now bring you (drum roll, please) Musicians! xRankTM provides much more than just a way to track search trends — it’s much more than that — it’s a social commentary. With xRankTM Musicians we bring you the “mob’s view” on what’s shaking up the music industry. Sure, you’ve got Top 40s, billboard charts, and album sales, but what&...
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With the recent update of the Product Search experience (http://search.live.com/products/), users can both research and find deals on products within Live Search. We’ve incorporated feedback from our users during the beta cycle and revamped the user experience, so now users can search and refine products by user opinions, brand, category, and price ranges. In addition, users can sort results by best user, expert rating, and price. Try it out...
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We’ve just released the latest updates to our browser-based mobile search at m.live.com. One of our major efforts was to bring the power of product search to the convenience of a mobile phone. Think about how much time people spend shopping in brick-and-mortar stores — without the ability to do the product research they’re accustomed to from their PCs. We took the great product search features from Live Search and made them...
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You wanted it, and now you have it. We’ve incorporated RSS feeds into the browse and search results experience. Subscribe and stay up to date with stories from all categories or for specific searches that you perform. We appreciate all the feedback that you’ve given us. We take it all seriously and do our best to respond. Try us out (http://news.live.com/), and keep the feedback coming! The News Search team
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Those of you who search for stuff related to celebrities in your spare time raise your hands. C’mon now, don’t be sheepish about it — we know the numbers, and we know you do it because we do it, too. Here’s a thought. What if we could rank who you and all other Live Searchers like to search for? And then there was born a child unlike its siblings, a Live Search feature whose sole purpose was to be — gasp...
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