Microsoft announced their updated MSN search in beta form this week. I was just putting together a post that compares its search results with Google’s and then I started realizing that I could only search for Microsoft and Microsoft-related products through the search field. No joke.
It took me a couple minutes to realize that the beta product must be undergoing some problems, but until then I was laughing hysterically when I searched for Microsoft and it only came up with one entry “www.Microsoft.com” and the beta search reported no results found for “Apple” and “Longhorn!” And no, the search wasn’t completely broken–although obviously it was having severe problems at the time. I still was able to search for “Windows”, “Word”, and “Excel.” Yep. You guessed it. They all returned the obligatory set of ads and one entry to a Microsoft site. Sounds like an early April Fools Joke doesn’t it?
I’m sure this was just a fleeting beta hickup, because I was getting excellent search results back before this. And I’m sure by the time you read this, they’ll probably have the search up and running fine again. Ah, beta software is fun, isn’t it?
Update: Oh, wow. The search is up again–just as I was posting this. This is very interesting. Was this a test index I was seeing? Hmm. Funny. Very funny.