Microsoft plans to use the tools it acquired in Powerset to “gain an edge against Google” according to a report coming out of the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose on Tuesday.  Senior Vice President Satya Nadella believe that gaining, and then using, a better understanding of user intent will help Microsoft to stop spinning its wheels in search market share.  According to Nadella:

"I believe this notion of understanding user intent--being able to analyze (search queries) and come up with search patterns and use them to shape the search experience--is one of the most important areas for us"

Microsoft continues to languish behind the search leader, with another round of bad news coming from Neilsen Online, showing Google continuing to gain, and Microsoft continuing to slip in US search market share.

However the news isn’t all bleak, as Microsoft believes strongly in the potential advantages provided by Powerset.  And they’ve got another ally, too: Bill Gate.  Scott Prevost, Powerset’s general manager, was quoted as saying that "Bill has definitely not retired for us".  Gates, who has stepped down from day to day operations, has said that he planned to continue to work on search.

Nadella also discussed plans to provide more directed experiences in subcategories such as travel, health, images, and video, according to the CNET Webware article by Stephen Shankland.  Indeed Live Search seems to provide a better user experience in these areas already, although it has not seemed to help their cause much, yet.

Thanks for the comments in the last post, it appears that Windows Live Video Messages is up and running, at http://videomessages.live.com/Portal/default.aspx?lc=1033.  Sign in with a Live ID, and give it a try (you may have to back out of the screen saying it will be up on 09/09.

lc=1033 is the location code for US, so of course the usual non US issues may apply.  A very quick first glance shows a simple but interesting new service, if you’re into webcams and video messages.  I’ll let the webcam pros give a more detailed review, but for now you can try it out.

You kill one service, and another one springs up to take its place. The Windows Live Support and Feedback sites helpfully spilled the beans on Windows Live Video Messages, a new beta service that ties in with the LifeCam range of webcams.

As we mentioned in our recent post on the new upcoming LifeCams, the VX5500 and the LifeCam Show, the new devices are compatible with a a Windows Vista sidebar gadget. Turns out this gadget is part of the new Video Messages service, along with a to-be-released web portal.

The Video Messages service allows all webcam users to send video messages to friends and family, even if they are offline. The bonus is that if you are using a LifeCam, you can do this direct from your desktop using the sidebar gadget.

Thought the website says the tech preview is coming to the public on 9th September, if you say you’re a member of the press you get presented with the gadget download link immediately. Groovy. No 64-bit version we could find though I’m afraid. Warning, we tested this without LifeCams installed and the entire sidebar disappeared. Let us know if you have any luck though.

So, 1.5 years after the launch of Windows Vista, we finally have our first official Windows Live sidebar gadget, not counting the Live Search (Maps) ones of course. Looks like things are on the up!

Totally off-topic, we heard whisperings of a contractor developed Messenger sidebar gadget about a year ago. I wonder what rabbit-hole that disappeared down…

Via PP2

Amit Mital posts on the Live Mesh blog that the CTP has now been expanded to include Canada, India and Ireland. One thing Amit does point out though is:

We do still have a maximum limit on the number of users we’ll allow into the Technology Preview, but as long as we’re below the limit, anyone in the countries above can sign-up today with no delays or wait list.

So make sure you sign up quickly.

There has been several debates raging today about the Olympics coverage from various media outlets thus far, and in particular regarding NBC in the US, who Microsoft have partnered with (see NBC doesn’t feature Bolt, has Silverlight take-up really done that well). While its still to early to judge the success of Silverlight, I’ve been focusing so far on following the progress of Live Search. At the start of the Olympics much was made about the tailoring of Live Search for this global event, and it was some of the comments on our original post that got me thinking about the strategies Microsoft is employing with Search.

Localisation is a topic we’ve mentioned consistently over the past few years and this was a key opportunity for Live Search to step-up and show itself as a global search engine. Alas it didn’t happen. This isn’t just a case of a few missing homepage images though, nearly all of the Olympic Instant Answers (medal tables, athlete profiles, stats on athlete searches from XRank, etc) are entirely US only. Note that some markets do have limited Olympics features, GB has medal tables for instance. For comparisons, Google appears to be running its features across all markets.

Today’s USA homepage image features Michael Phelps, which was up almost immediately after his win last night, showing just how relevant Live Search can be. (Good job Venkat!)

One other region has featured Olympics imagery so far, and that has been China, with the Bird’s Nest stadium showing throughout the competition. The fact that homepage imagery is showing in another market reinforces that this is not down to technological limitations, but is a business decision.

Who makes the decision to focus on 300million users, when you have another 6.4 billion in markets around the world?

Search, guesstimated value at $1billion for 1% of search queries, is an extremely lucrative market.  If the decision to deploy key features is down to insufficient resources, namely people to do the translations and update the content, then you have to question intent and desire to succeed.

On a side note, Steve Clayton discusses assumptions with regards to product launch and localisation, based on some recent IM stats. Broadband penetration isn’t an issue in this regards, Search is a platform independent, device independent, connection independent, browser independent service. No excuses here I’m afraid.

Incidentally, the Michael Phelps adorned page has a link to the latest Olympics news coverage on Live Search. Here’s the page while I was writing my post. In my mind this shows just how far Live Search still has to go for relevance.

(Note: I use both Live Search and Google in day to day use.)

Just thought I’d do a little promotion for one of our old friends, Steven Sinofsky, who is now blogging with John DeVaan over at Engineering Windows 7 (or e7 for short). There’s a welcome post up already, which leaves you in no doubt as to their intentions for the blog.

“We strongly believe that success for Windows 7 includes an open and honest, and two-way, discussion about how we balance all of these interests and deliver software on the scale of Windows. We promise and will deliver such a dialog with this blog.”

Steven you already started off by setting expectations too high, and inevitably you will now disappoint. Maybe someone could be open, honest and two-way about Ultimate Extras though while you’re at it – you know, that small little thing we all paid $100 for.

“In leading up to this blog we have seen a lot of discussion in blogs about what Microsoft might be trying to accomplish by maintaining a little bit more control over the communication around Windows 7 (some might say that this is a significant understatement).”

…and Windows Live too. See Long Zheng. I’d go out on a limb here and say this was approved disclosure.

“Our intent is to post “regularly”. We’ll watch the comments and we will definitely participate both in comments and potentially in follow-up posts as required.”

Why the quotemarks? Ohh, that’s right, its going to be a press-release style, information posted when approved by PR type of blog. Maybe just move the blog to MS Presspass to make it easier for those mainstream journalists to find and quote?

“We will make sure that members of the Windows 7 development team represent themselves as such as well.”

So the Disclosure Director is now tasked with beating employees into commenting on the blog. Oh fun times in Redmond for the next 2 years!

Community vehicle, no. PR vehicle, most likely. PR is good, just don’t pretend this blog is something it is not going to be. Full credit goes to the real community efforts.

PS: Steven, if you want some more stickers just let us know. Maybe throw us a link in your sidebar?

The potential is limitless, but just how many folders and files can you put in Live Mesh today? What’s the maximum file size and how many people can you invite into a folder? Is there a limit to the number of devices you can add? The Live Mesh Team answered as follows:

• Size of all contents in a single Live Folder: 10GB (of course there’s still the 5GB quota which limits how much you can synchronize with the Live Desktop)
• Individual file size: 2GB
• Items (file or folders) per Live Folder: 100,000
• Members per Live Folder: 200
• Number of Live Folders per user: 200
• Number of devices per user: 100

The Team expects these numbers to go up with subsequent service updates. Now we’ve not seen an update since their post (yesterday), but either they wrote it down wrong or the numbers have gone up already, without service update as Paul Thurrott managed to synchronize one folder that has about 20 GB of content in P2P mode…*

Speaking about limits, there are also some limits on the file/folder type you can share or synchronize. You cannot synchronize or share the following with Live Mesh:

• Files whose names begin with a tilde (~)
• desktop.ini
• thumbs.db
• Hidden files
• Windows Systems folders
• Your Desktop directory folder (for example, C:\users\[myusername]\Desktop on Windows Vista or C:\Documents and Settings\[myusername]\Desktop on Windows XP)
• Files and folders stored on removable media (such as an external hard drive, flash drive, or USB drive)

Live Mesh also blocks files that have the following file extensions: .bak, .gfs, .lnk, .pst, .sav, .tmp and .wlx

You are also not allowed/supposed to share files containing obscene or copyrighted material. Copying or sharing unauthorized materials, including materials that you did not create or you do not have the rights necessary for use, is a violation of the Windows Live terms of use. See the Microsoft Copyright Notice and FAQ.

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* Update from the Live Mesh Team:

These are not limits that are hard coded into the system. They are boundary guidelines we've established based on internal and external feedback, and we're confident that anything under these boundaries will work well for all users. Because they are not hard coded limits, you can exceed these boundaries, and at that point your mileage may vary.  Feel free to certify and share your own success stories...and stay tuned as we will definitely increase these boundaries/guidelines as we complete further tuning and testing.

Its true, nobody is perfect. In fact during the May 22nd update to Skydrive, we missed the addition of Favourites support to Windows Live Skydrive (hey pp2 missed it until recently too!). Interestingly enough the team blog post didn’t point out the change either. (and nobody tipped us? Guess you’re all using Mesh too…)

Check out the not-so-new Favourites folder that now exists by default on http://skydrive.live.com.

So what does this mean for the existing Windows Live Favourites service? We’ve heard that by the end of Wave 3, favourites.live.com will redirect to this new Skydrive folder.

Obviously nobody will want to manually enter in their 100 favourite websites into Skydrive, which is why we’re expecting to see a new Windows Live Toolbar add-in for Wave 3. For those who have good memories, an add-in for the old service was rolled out 2 years ago - those who beta tested it will remember it with some fondness. This ability to synchronise favourites and thereby provide a compelling user experience with Internet Explorer 8, is something that Mary Jo Foley keeps referring to. She did so again today, quoting one of the “Big Bets” made by Chris Jones in a certain Wave 3 planning memo:

“Our experiences will be designed so when they are connected to Windows 7 they seamlessly extend the Windows experience, and we will work to follow the Windows 7 style guidelines for applications.  We will work with the Internet Explorer 8 team to make sure we deliver an experience that seamlessly extends the browser with our toolbar and other offerings.Search and MSN.”

Lets not get ahead of ourselves here, we don’t even have the favourites synching yet, but the ability to synchronise RSS feeds from the Windows feedstore to Skydrive is something that definitely appeals.

The move to Skydrive is a welcome update, and potentially offers the ability to share bookmarks with your friends and thereby allow other users to comment on them. At the moment though, its all privately stored, with the comment form rendered somewhat useless for the time being. The old/existing stand-alone service has a top-favourite and also sharing options, suggesting that this move is less about developing the service, and more about taking Windows Live Favourites to a mainstream audience as part of Skydrive.

Make Skydrive the one-stop shop for sharing with your friends, and then there is less user confusion around which service to use. This makes sense when you consider that Skydrive could be used to share more than just files and favourites; photos as well, maybe even videos? Following the closure of Expo, we like the idea of deadpooling Favourites as a separate service -  Mini-MSFT be proud!

(Note: We don’t fully understand either why Microsoft is putting so much time into Skydrive given the huge potential of Mesh as a platform, beyond the fact that Skydrive is a short-term solution for now, and Mesh has a much longer timeframe for development. That said, hopefully somebody will start clarifying these differences – why build 2 products that do the same thing?)

Apparently there’s been a bit of a stir around what Google Maps did/didn’t do to their maps of the country of Georgia.  In a blog post today, Google says they haven’t done anything to their maps in relation to the conflict currently affecting Georgia, that they’ve just never had any good information on the country to begin with:

Some of our customers have asked if we removed map data from any of these countries in response to the recent hostilities in that region and I can assure you that is not the case. Data for these countries were never on Google Maps in the first place.

  Here’s what you get today from Google Maps:

Of course if you wanted information on Georgia, or South Ossetia, you could try Live Search Maps:

And then, in an unrelated but kind of funny aside, one of my favorite blogs PhotoShop Disasters posted what appears to be (poor) photoshopping of a Google Map of a part of the Netherlands, near Brummen:

(note the repetition of the white tree, etc)

Live Search Maps has a nicer picture (of course):

We doubt the black helicopter assertion, as the patch of trees is next to a golf course, and we’re not saying that any and all map offerings probably aren't fixed up somewhere along the line, just funny that PhotoShop Disasters picked up on it.