What are Microsoft’s Future Search Strategies?
July 4th, 2008 | by Peter Cullen |So what happens now that the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo looks dead in the water? Yahoo is off trying to build a relationship with Google and both Google and Yahoo are enhancing their search technology by building links with Adobe.
You may get the impression that Microsoft is starting to lose interest in this area and may look to other ways of building its business, maybe in the traditional software world?
Well, think again, have a look at this video from Scobleizer TV, it’s an interview with Brad Golberg, general manager of Microsoft Live Search. Brad lays out the future direct of Live search, well worth a view. To start with Brad mentions;:
- cash back scheme
- search has the ability to get a lot better
- about 40% of all queries go unanswered
- about 50% of all queries get refinded
He also talks about how the search engines have a problem with for example, if I typed in the term, ‘paris’ the search engine wouldn’t know if I was looking for :
- paris, france
- paris hotel in Las Vegas
- paris hilton
They also talk about the branding of search and how difficult it will be to change the mindset from , Google = Search to Microsoft = Search.
Brad talked about the ‘core customer requirement’ for all search engines is relevance.
Also went on to talk about’ commerical search ‘ and one of the ways that search will evolve will be that it’ll become a lot more task centric and he lists the four tasks that people are looking to complete when they go online:
- looking to be entertained
- looking to buy something
- looking for a piece of information (research)
- looking to navigate from one site to another
He says that Search currently plays a faily small role in all these tasks and they’ll be looking to broaden out this area. The specific area that Microsoft will focus on first is commerce and within that they’ll dig deeper into areas like commercial relevance, looking at areas such as:
- product information
- product research
- product front end experience
Microsoft see themselves carving out a competitive niche here.
Anyway, lots more on the video, check it out…
3 Responses to “What are Microsoft’s Future Search Strategies?”
By Pat on Jul 10, 2008 | Reply
Interesting article Peter. As someone who uses Pay Per Click advertising for Hotels the issue I think that needs to be addressed is the lack of competition in this field. I would love to see Yahoo or anyone else be as powerful as Google. Currently Pay Per Click costs have been increasing & return on investment is decreasing as more & more people are using PPC. We need real competition not alliances.
By sachinraj on Nov 20, 2008 | Reply
You may get the impression that Microsoft is starting to lose interest in this area and may look to other ways of building its business, maybe in the traditional software world?
Well, think again, have a look at this video from Scobleizer TV, it’s an interview with Brad Golberg, general manager of Microsoft Live Search. Brad lays out the future direct of Live search, well worth a view.
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