With all the attention the recent MSN Search Toolbar with Windows Desktop Search product has been getting, the team has been hard at work extending and improving the product for an international audience. On June 23rd, we released version 02.05.0000.1082 to the web for eleven markets, including a revision of the United States (English) highlight of this international rollout was a launch of the Japanese versions of both our Web search and the MSN Search Toolbar with Windows Desktop Search by Bill Gates on June 27th along with previews of some exciting search research projects and the announcement of an MSN Research and Development center in Japan, all of which gathered a lot of positive press...
As we mentioned earlier, in the latest version of MSN Search we’ve added a number of new advanced query operators. These make it easier to find things using MSN Search, and in some cases capture some of the zeitgeist of the Internet. Filetype: One of the most requests operators was filetype:, which enables you to filter documents based on their particular filetype. Currently, MSN Search supports html, txt, and pdf, as well as the primary Office document types: doc, rtf, xls, and ppt for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. This is outstanding for finding official forms which are usually in PDF or DOC format… for example, 1040 filetype:pdf for the official IRS 1040 for US Taxes, or brazil visa...
When we rolled out instant answers for the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Tournament , we got a ton of great feedback. By far, your most common request was for more sports. In light of this, we just released instant answers for professional baseball! We teamed up with FOX Sports to bring you four different kinds of answers for the majors: League – query for baseball to get the latest real-time scores and schedules League date – type in baseball [date] during the season to get a summary of all games for that day Team – punch in your favorite team for some general stats and game info Player – look up any major league player for up to date statistics As an extra bonus, the sports answers also...
We launched our MSN Search engine on February 1st and have remained hard at work to make it better every day. Yesterday, we released some improvements we hope you’ll like. Much of this work is targeted directly at feedback that our blog readers and other customers have given us, so please keep the comments coming! We have a long way to go to achieve our vision of the perfect search engine – and we can’t do it without your continued feedback and support.. Our number one user request was to improve and expand upon our local search offering. The ‘Near me’ feature we launched in February was missing something really important – the ability to look up yellow page and white page numbers. Our new local...
We would like to thank everyone for giving our tabbed browsing implementation a try and submitting your feedback . We are actively listening and working on improving the feature! Our goal in delivering this feature was to give IE users a tabbed browsing solution to enhance overall online search and browse experiences prior to the official release of IE7 without them having to install a completely new browser. Many of you have reported a flicker when you switch tabs. We understand that this is bothersome and are actively working on improvements to reduce the tab flicker. There have also been reports of issues associated with tabs and using F11 in IE to get to full screen mode. We are also looking...
You asked for it, we told you it was coming and now it’s here! Happy to let you know Tabs are now available as part of the MSN Search Toolbar with Windows Desktop Search. Why are tabs so great? Well here is a personal example: I am addicted to online shopping. Yet I don’t have the time to constantly monitor the shopping sites I love for great deals and new items. The new Tabbed Browsing feature in MSN Search Toolbar lets me set a group of favorite sites as My Tabs, so that I can open a set of web pages in tabs all at once. So every morning as I’m drinking my orange juice, it takes just one click for me to check out all the latest bargains. Tabbed browsing not only makes online shopping easier...
Do you want to see the latest aggregator from Start.com? They launched a preview of their latest aggregator last night. In addition to having a slick new look, the site has search results integration, stock and weather modules, and a search history. The URL to the new aggregator can be found after you solve a puzzle at http://www.start.com/3 (don't worry MSN Search's Instant Answers are available to help). Have fun playing with the new site. Brady Forrest, MSN Search PM
