Microsoft have shown in the past that they will offer different methods of getting at their search index - probably the most famous of which was Ms Dewey.
Now a new one has come out. Unfortunately I don't know what to call it because they haven't bothered to tell us but you can see it at http://search.imagine-live.com. It isn't quite as off the wall as Dewey, its much more akin to the regular Live Search page. What's different is that it shows other pertinent material on the right-hand side of the screen that you may be interested in such as images, news items, maps and related searches. See what's missing from that list? There's no adverts on there.
Given that our Prime Minister has announced today that he's jacking it in I picked him to demo these search features seeing as I figured there should be some decent new material: http://search.imagine-live.com/search.aspx?q=tony+blair&mkt=en-us&FORM=MICC12&maps=yes&demo=find
Unfortunately it doesn't work very well.
- Often I get an error screen rather than any results.
- The map that is shown bears no relation to my search term - in fact it always shows my home town so I'm guessing its doing it off of my IP address.
- If you click on the 'explore more' link under the map it takes you to a map showing Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, WA even though the URL in the address bar still shows the search term "Tony Blair".
- The 'Find Information Fast' section bears no resemblance to the search term.
- The search page itself at http://search.imagine-live.com/ has a distinctly "unfinished" feel to it
OK, so there's some problems with it - but that's OK because this isn't a formally released product. I've never heard anything about it before So, given that it doesn't work and Microsoft haven't bothered telling anyone about it - I find it very stange that I stumbled upon this site via an advert on bebo.com. Why are they advertising it if it doesn't work?
One other thing. If you do a search on this site for itself you get back a list of other links to sites that I've also never heard of before:
All very mysterious indeed.
-Jamie
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