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3/08/2006

Windows Live Search - First Impressions

At first glance I gotta say I kinda like Microsoft's new Windows Live Search (www.live.com) released in beta today. What I especially like about the site is the slider bar feature that allows you to collapse and expand the results from a web search. At the highest bar setting it adds a Search Within this Site field that allows you to directly search the site without having to visit it -- very useful! My only frustration at this time is the small search results window. Since I'm a "page down/page up" gal, this element of the site just doesn't lend itself well to keyboard commands.

But all that aside, I think the search tool has potential. The search within the site feature for me definitely raises the bar and I would expect to see Google and Yahoo also adding something similar soon. In the meantime, check out the site. It also includes a nice image search (the compress and expand feature is nice here too) and a feed search tab. Anyway, in the next few days I plan on playing around with this site a lot. In the meantime, I need for someone to create a Windows Live search plug-in for Mozilla. :)

PS: The image search screen to me looks so clean and Apple-ish, that I think even diehard Mac users will like this tool. :)

PPS: The site has locked up on me twice in IE, but hasn't yet once in FireFox -- hmm, interesting...

PPPS: Wouldn't it be cool if future library catalogs could borrow upon this concept ... Think of a "Search within this book" field being part of the holdings/title results screen.

OK - end of thoughts :)

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