LiveSide - News blog

Atleast it isn't loosing market share

Right -- I would analyze this differently.  Microsoft has *clearly* arrested a long-term (+54 months) slide in marketshare.  Nobody expected Microsoft to speedily gain share once Live Search was released.  This is the floor for Microsoft to build back from.  It'll happen slowly...but, I think, surely.

Could it be because Live Search is completely uncompelling, but at the same time "good enough" for some people?

Yes, I think it is.

We haven't see any real improvement in Live Search for a while, actually, and their blog has been bloody silent. Compare that to Google (shockingly), who is less "open" but more "active."

I use Live Search regularly, but Google is (1) better and (2) Live is really a copy of what Google was 12-18 months ago.

Well, it's obvious by now that other people aren't going to change. Live Search isn't doing enough. Why:

1. It's not compelling enough - Have they done something different with search? I could think a ton of ways that search can be done better, and even be innovative, but Live Search hasn't really done that type of stuff. Until they actually do something that will make people actually interested, they've got nothing for other people.

2. No good advertising - The ads they do kind of suck. They brag about what basically any search engine could do. And I've only seen web ads. Putting them on the web isn't good enough. Barely anyone looks at them. It's spyware to most people. TV ads and product placement are the way to go. Look at Apple. Even then, Live Seach isn't still compelling to get them to stick.

3. They're not really doing anything big. Some cool stuff, but not enough. Unless there's something groundbreaking, nobody's moving towards it. People are just lazy to bother with another search engine. Most people are going to stick to Google, because it works. Just like Yahoo! search works, and Live Search works. People stick with what they started with. Unless it's something groundbreaking, it's not changing.

So if they can't address the 3 problems, they're going nowhere.

I beleive that Microsoft should work on making the page live.com to open faster. For slow connections it is obvious that google opens faster than live.com.

Google is also improving its search results, you can watch a youtube video directly in the search results. This is a great idea.

Microsoft should work on performance, speed, and ideas.

I agree, Live Search needs something really, really, really big if they want to make any serious headway. Nice little touches, like "Related Searches" or whatever, are going to convince basically nobody. Even what Ask.com is doing, all their ads and everything, is not going to convince many people.

What Google Maps did, with AJAX and satellite imagery, was enough to make a lot of people switch from Mapquest or Yahoo! or whatever. What they did with Gmail, with AJAX and labels and conversations and such, was enough to make a lot of people switch from Hotmail or Yahoo! or whatever. What Microsoft is doing with Live just isn't enough.

On top of that, they don't have a strong brand identity. Nobody knows what Live is--sometimes, it seems, not even Microsoft. Maybe it would have been better to just stick with MSN...

And like vipwoody said, speed is always an issue.

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That said, at least they're outperforming all other Google competitors. :) And if searches grew, and their market share held steady, then that still means Live Search is growing--just not relative to the market as a whole.

But still, they need something HUGE.

We may not have gained market share, but Live.com globally is the 5th most visited site on the internet, according to Alexa! We beat Myspace and Baidu, to reach #5! That surely talks something about traction around the Live Brand.

www.alexa.com

http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=global&lang=none

Of course, in the US, it's a little different story.

http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?cc=US&ts_mode=country&lang=none

Can someone put a new topic around this?