Microsoft Rolls Out Live Search Update

Starting today, Microsoft is “phasing in” a new version of Live Search, its online engine, in order for the company to better compete with two much more popular such venues on the Web, Yahoo! and Google. In a week, the new Live Search will replace the current version for all of Microsoft’s US-based users and will be accessible by all the world come the end of October.

What I can’t help but find most interesting about this announcement is Microsoft’s statement about the update when comparing it to the company’s outstanding nemesis on the Web, Google. The company’s vice president of search and advertising, Satya Nadella, said, “this time, we feel we can claim we are as good as Google.” The key phrase being: “as good as.”

Come on, Microsoft. At least pretend to assume the naïve impression that anything Google does you can do better. It’s so unlike you guys to be so modest.

Yes, everyone knows that Google is the king of search, and that all others in the field are more or less eating the crumbs off their table, but whatever happened to MSFT’s coldhearted drive to dominate the tech world end to end, whether it be on the PC or the Internet? Have they given up wishin’ and hopin’ and pushin’?

If so, they certainly aren’t going to be gaining much in market share now, are they? No sir. Which is fine I suppose, because at first glance of the new Live Search, I simply cannot see anything that puts it ahead of its domineering competition, technologically speaking. There’s the added intelligence that allows the engine to scour not only webpage links, but videos and photos and things as well, and a portion of the results page will now offer up related keywords and phrases, but that’s pretty much it. Google provides slightly, slightly less in the way of variety. But no matter. It’s got the essentials. So the industry king’s place atop the hill remains safe and secure.

Microsoft’s new Live Search is something of a hybrid. It’s one part Google/Yahoo! in its basic structure, with one foot in the Ask.com’s door in the way that the engine tries to be smart about what results it reveals. For example, if a search has something to do with a landmark, business or something else within a particular location, the first items to show up will likely be a series of things found within Microsoft’s Maps utility, Virtual Earth, complete with a miniature image of the area. A search involving a well-known celebrity will turn up images and possibly some videos as well. And so on and so forth.

Unfortunately, Google is continuously working on these very features at this very moment, too. Which means Microsoft (as well as Yahoo! and Ask, etc.) is simply trying to keep up.

And I can’t blame ‘em. What else can they do? They can’t reinvent search. The way of Google Search has been so firmly ingrained in the vast majority of those trawling the Web today that competitors can only choose to follow the leader and perhaps build on its ideas in order that they maintain the shares they’ve thus far carved for themselves, perhaps adding a few points here and there.

If Google were to stop advancing its engine today, the rest of the market would most definitely have a shot at supplanting the company. But Google clearly won’t make such a terrible, disruptive move. So for now, I imagine the status quo will remain the status quo.

All in all, if you enjoyed Live Search before, you’ll probably like the new version. If you’ve stuck with the GOOG, or Yahoo!, or Ask.com for the years each of them have been around, you’ll likely stay where you are. And the world will keep turning.