Live Search 2.0 begins rollout

Apparently Microsoft can't wait to get the new Live Search up and running before next week's Searchification event, as the new look (and better results) search is beginning to show up in the wild.

Akram Hussein, Program Manager - Windows Live Platform, who was at the company meeting and saw the Live Search demo, apparently has the new search in his location and has kindly posted some screenshots:

Update: the post has been taken down, for now.

Here's what I still get from the "old" live search:

As you can see, the search box, and "see also" (images, news, msn, etc) have moved down into the page. The "most popular products" showing images and ratings, coming from MSN Shopping, is new. Also checking the search results, Live Search leaps from some 4 million results in the old page to over 64 million in the new version (of course it's how relevant the first few results are, nobody ventures much beyond the second page anyway).

Drilling down from one of the products pictured gives what Akram calls a "holistic view" of the search results:

Akram also tried out a people search, for Brad Pitt:

Again, a quick view of popular pictures and news on the main page, more search results, and quick links to Images, videos, etc:

Akram couldn't show us the video search, so he described it:

Finally, the last feature i can talk about is video search which really Rocks!, and i can't show you that here you gotta go and see it yourself. First searching video presents you with decent amount of results like google but what's better is that you can preview videos online by moving your mouse over any video and it will play a preview of the video right away no delays! Isn't this amazing, at least now you can preview the video before really going and trying to view it, and make sure this is the one you want.

We've had at least one tip that a reader already has the new search capabilities, so it does appear to be rolling out. So far I'm not seeing it here but check it out at http://search.live.com and let us know if you're seeing the new search!

UPDATE: The Live Search update has now been launched. Check out the new vertical search engines.

Published Sep 20 2007, 07:09 PM by Kip Kniskern

Filed under: Live Search, Featured

Comments

	stephenophof said: Cool. September 20, 2007 7:23 PM
	Nick said: Looks great September 20, 2007 7:55 PM
	wargarurumon said: i've got it too and i'm from belgium September 20, 2007 10:27 PM
	Espiox said: I was at college today (I'm in the UK btw), and I still got the old style search results. But right next to me, my friend got the new style. I have no idea what he did different. September 20, 2007 10:40 PM
	mdsharpe said: I'm still getting the old search here in the UK. September 20, 2007 11:20 PM
	calum-r- said: I don't have it here in the UK either. Can anyone tell me if they have implemented any new features into mage Search please? September 20, 2007 11:52 PM
	Alber1690 said: I wonder why currently all of the links to the video results point to a "beta.searchvideo.com/x," a sub-domain of "searchvideo.com" which is "truveo.com"... September 21, 2007 12:00 AM
	quikboy said: I'm still surprised that not everybody can see it. @calum-r: No, not really. It still works about the same. I think the scratchpad works much more better for sure. It works much better to me. Otherwise than that, it's the same. More Google-looking though - which I'm not sure it's cool. If I didn't know any better, I would say that the new Live Search looks exactly like Google Search. September 21, 2007 1:57 AM
	calum-r- said: Thanks for answering my question quickboy. I was going to say something about the screenshots on here looking to much like Google's search results pages, but I thought it may just be the way I'm seeing the screenshots, so I was going to wait to try it out... But if you're saying its a lot like Google's then I'm interested as to why? I hate Google's interface lol. Do you think Live Search are doing that to make it more familiar to Google users to try and win google users over?? September 21, 2007 2:05 AM
	Mephiles said: I was able to get the live search 2.0 from the home.live.com site and searching there. If I search anywhere else, I use the old one. Or atleast... I used to. September 21, 2007 4:54 PM
	stephenophof said: Here in the Netherlands is still Live Search 1.0 September 21, 2007 5:09 PM
	LordDaMan said: I have the new search. I'm in the USA and it seems to come up with any live search (live.search.com, the search box in IE7, etc) September 21, 2007 10:09 PM
	boldfire said: Getting new on IE7. Old on Fx. Few thing's I've noticed. 1) Maps still using old UI. 2) Windows Orb doesn't do drop-down like rest of services. 3) Web search takes about 90% of the screen width in center, and image search goes 100% - so looks inconsistant. September 21, 2007 10:19 PM
	kmturner said: I have new new search here at work. September 22, 2007 6:30 PM