A key challenge to Microsoft is to improve their search performance and as part of the Microsoft Live session we saw a couple of things they're doing to move forward.
Koji showed how a tablet PC could be used to make search easier, through writing the search terms with a tablet pen and having the engine start searching as soon as each term is added - making the process a little more dynamic. And by dragging the search terms around the importance of each term could be lifted or lowered. Very impressive - but then again next to no-one has a tablet PC.
The other demonstration was of QnA - questions and answers. In Korea a QnA style search engine called Naver has grown incredibly quickly and is now the top search engine in that market - so Microsoft hope they can have a big impact in the West too.
Basically this search depends on other users answering a query - either through a FAQ or by waiting until someone comes up with the answers. Not yet in beta, its an interesting development although it seems they're not alone. As well as Yahoo Answers they're are lots of smaller companies playing in this space too. Expect lots of activity in the coming months.
(And we've been promised access to the beta when it goes live - so watch this space)
It's true that Tablets are not common. Hopefully (crossing fingers) this'll change in the next 5 years ... we'll see how that team does.
Regardless, was great meeting with you. Hope to touch base again soon :)
Posted by: Koji Kato [MSFT] | May 19, 2006 at 12:14 PM
I think tablets will take off - eventually. Really good to meet you and I learned a lot from the session. best
Posted by: Simon Andrews | May 19, 2006 at 02:01 PM