Microsoft’s Live Search News or is that Search News Live or Live News Search or ….ugh….anyway….the search that searches news on the MSN domain, yeah that one, has added RSS feeds to its latest incarnation of its news search results. For example, here’s the feed for “Tablet PC:” http://search.msn.com/news/results.aspx?q=tablet+pc&form=QBNB&format=rss.
For those of you like me who sometimes type in URLs for no good reason, the RSS feed for a search term can be widdled down to this:
http://search.msn.com/news/?q=SEARCHTERM&format=rss
For instance, to search for Tablet PC, you can use the much shorter:
http://search.msn.com/news/?q=tablet+pc&format=rss
I’m not sure what form=QBNB means. With my 40+ year old eyes I don’t see what the difference is with and without it. I’m guessing it controls the layout of the query results somehow and QBNB is the default. Yeah, that’s a total guess on my part.
By the way, I don’t see yet how to bring up the RSS directly from the Live Search text box. I tried this for “Tablet PC”:
http://www.live.com/?&scope=news&q=tablet+pc&format=rss
but it doesn’t return the RSS. Hmm. It does return the search results, however, (ignoring the format part of the URL) and on this results page you can select RSS feed.
I’m so glad the Live team has added this feature. It’s time to update thredr.
Now if only the Live Search team would fix up the RSS feeds for the mainstream search so it can return just the “info strip” at the top of some searches. For instance, if I search for “1+2”, on the live site, the search results returns the mathematical answer “3” at the top of the results:
Yes, call me silly, but being able to query the Live engine for more than just “search results” is quite powerful. It’s a tiny step into controlling the context. You see there’s so much more that “search” engines can be doing and to return the results formatted as RSS is a great communication pathway for applications to hook into the results and leverage them.
For instance, check out this math tip (Silverlight required) at http://www.TabletPCPost.com/math:
See how I can handwrite a math problem into the input area and then send the query to Google? Google is “smart” enough to realize that this is probably a math problem, so it returns the math results cleanly. Live Search doesn’t. We could debate whether this or that implementation is correct, however, what I’d really like to see, neither service implements. What I want is to be able to tell the engine what the context is that I’m looking for. In this case I want a math answer. I’d also like the results in RSS format if I request it so I can programmatically use the results. So, for Live Search, I’d like something like:
http://search.msn.com/?q=1+%2B+2&form=MATH&format=rss
Now, yes, I can get the RSS feed from Live Search for 1 + 2, but notice if I do, it does not return the math results. I can appreciate why. In terms of the context of searching, the math results may not be what you want. But what happens if they are? Imagine a program trying to get to very specific results like my math Tip does. If the search engine was implemented correctly, it could return just the results desired–via RSS. Now this would be extremely powerful.
You could have RSS results (ready for eager programmers to devour) for math, definitions, encyclopedia lookups, and on and on. If you free yourself from even thinking in terms of text (or the user having to type text even if it is ultimately a text query to the user, such as the math Tip does) then there are even more interesting possibilities. Think about graphs or physics or diagrams. OK, I’m probably losing most everyone at this point, but in your downtime, suspend disbelief a little and dream–dream big. There are some amazing possibilities here–at least in terms of one direction I can see search going.
Yeah, I’ve blogged about all of this before, but the possibility still excites me. Someday….