Microsoft Introduces Competition For Google News 312
Romeo E. Cabrera writes "In advance of an imminent launch of its own search engine, Microsoft has launched its own version of the popular Google News service. Based initially on feeds from the Moreover news aggregation service, the new beta service (known as MSN Newsbot) aims to provide news on a range of subjects including World, Sports, Entertainment, Science and Technology."
Paranoid? Maybe not.. (Score:5, Interesting)
TinFoilHat time:
I imagine any news that is negative to MS' bottom line will be relegated to the back of the bus, much like Linux search results in MSN's search. Thanks, but I'll use a news engine from a company with in interest in cool tech, not spinning the news to appease stockholders.
Re:Paranoid? Maybe not.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Paranoid? Maybe not.. (Score:5, Funny)
They blame the computer! (Score:2)
"As we all know, computers aren't smart enough to really understand all our human idiosyncrasies"
Re:Paranoid? Maybe not.. (Score:5, Funny)
Has miscrosoft ever released public products or services that were labeled beta? From my memory, everything they produced was the most complete, functional, secure and final solution around.
Definition... (Score:4, Funny)
I guess that depends on your definition of "final solution"...
Re:Paranoid? Maybe not.. (Score:5, Interesting)
As I look now, a few minutes after the
How's this for a test? Everyone on
Or, even better, come back to the site after a couple of days and see how it's changed. Then, reevaluate on the basis of some actually vaguely accurate data! Going against the whole rationale of
Re:Paranoid? Maybe not.. (Score:5, Informative)
http://g.msn.com/0PNENGB/1?http://c.moreover.com/
Re:Paranoid? Maybe not.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, MS DOES innovate. They DO take ideas from others but they make a better product out of it. Why is MS Office so popular? Wordperfect and Lotus had a headstart but couldn't keep up. How come SQL Server is eating up marketshare? It came out of nowhere. Watch X-Box capture market share (I think Nintendo won't release a next version and Sony may have problems). If MS sucks at innovation, why is Visual Studio offer more features and capabilities than any of its competition?
Look at the Linux world. Most of the open-source software(OSS) are clones of existing stuff. The vast majority of OSS software copy Unix or Windows. Why is KDE/X (or Gnome for the rest of you
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Re:Paranoid? Maybe not.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now Microsoft has a monopoly and the inertia will eventually kill them. My only question is, can I pick the stock of the next contender to the throne? That my friend is the American way.
What's interesting is IBM lost its PC monopoly because of the openness of the hardware. I think it would be rather ironic if MS loses their monopoly because the, albeit different, open architecture of OSS.
Re:Paranoid? Maybe not.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Biased? Microsoft? (Score:5, Funny)
1. Microsoft tests Web news service ZDNet Full coverage...
2. Microsoft tests Web news service DoubleClick Full coverage...
'Course not
Re:Biased? Microsoft? (Score:2)
I agree, and checkout this search (Score:2, Interesting)
MSN [msn.com]
Google [google.com].
Re:Paranoid? Maybe not.. (Score:5, Informative)
Didn't we just dispel that myth about a week ago, when showing that beyond MSN's initial page(s) of sponsored links, Linux search results thrived in massive numbers? A search for "linux" on MSN returns 440 sponsored links, most of which are legitimate linux sites. Going beyond that list yields over 15 million additional results. I know that doesn't compare to Google, but that's like apples to oranges. Google is a far superior search engine/service by its own merit. Linux.org is #4 on the first page of results, by the way (even though it is beneath that site about migrating away from linux over to Microsoft, lol).
I know that we can't expect Microsoft to roll out the red carpet for negative news about themselves too often, or even positive news for alternative products, but can we please stop with the paranoia? I think they've demonstrated that while they are in fact petty, they aren't quite that petty.
Re:Paranoid? Maybe not.. (Score:2)
No. We showed that it *DID* push Linux links back. Not to the end, but only a page, still, they were, indeed, pushed back. And that makes the entire system more clumsy to use, less useful, and a waste of time.
If I'm searching for Peanut Creme Torte receipes, then I don't want the first results to be ads for the Peanut Research Council and Tort lawyers. That I can step back a page and
Re:Paranoid? Maybe not.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Paranoid? Maybe not.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Paranoid? Maybe not.. (Score:2)
Re:Initial Pages are all that count (Score:3, Interesting)
For 90% of the population/market, the first couple of pages are all they look at.
If the first couple of pages are even close to 100% relevant to your search, then I bet you wouldn't look beyond them, either. Why would you? You found what you were looking for. If that's the case, then Microsoft would be accurate in their results, global domination con
Re:Paranoid? Maybe not.. (Score:2)
Slate and MSNBC haven't been particularly pro-Microsoft (other than the generic pro-corporate bias all mainstream media have). I don't see this is a huge worry, personally.
Compare MSNBC's reporting on Microsoft with ABC's (explicit and candidly admitted) refusal to report anything bad about Disney, or indeed to do much of anything except hype Disney-owned "artists" like Britney Spears. That's a much bigger worry to me.
Re:Paranoid? Maybe not.. (Score:5, Funny)
The news source you anti-trust.
Re:Paranoid? Maybe not.. (Score:3, Interesting)
[*] The Newsbot hit-counter s
Haven't you people ever seen MSNBC? (Score:3, Insightful)
Pro-linux [msnbc.com]
Anti-microsoft [msnbc.com]
Re:and perhaps conversely... (Score:2)
Oddly Enough... (Score:4, Informative)
Jaysyn
Still using google (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oddly Enough... (Score:5, Interesting)
too true. microsoft has talked a lot recently about how their committed to innovation. and yet, their two most recent releases:
Re:Oddly Enough... (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally I don't care whether or not a company has innovated in the "here's something totally new that you've never seen before" - if they can take something and make it better, then I (as a punter) will chose it.
To innovate doesn't have to have the pre-requsit of "start from scratch". It's perfectly possible to take something that isn't particulary new and then add new features and claim that to be innovative.
Other companie
Re:Oddly Enough... (Score:5, Interesting)
you may not care, but microsoft does. remember that recent interview where balmer said that linux was "not innovative" because it was just "a clone of unix"?
ms has set their own definition of innovation. and they aren't living up to it.
Re:Oddly Enough... (Score:5, Funny)
3. A secure Operating System "like Linux"...
Re:Oddly Enough... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oddly Enough... (Score:2)
Yes, this is still firmly in 'beta.'
As long as it is not the same stuff (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:As long as it is not the same stuff (Score:2, Informative)
This is a little off-topic I admit, but I'll risk the Karma because it might be of interest to a few people here seeing as a lot of
I subscribe to Stratfor [stratfor.com]. It's a paid for service geared towards investors and company strategists and it provides some of the best international and political news you'll ever find. It's cheap enough that I subscribe privately and you can guarentee that it isn't full of propaganda. Why? Because it's used by people with money and whateve
Re:As long as it is not the same stuff (Score:2)
So why do you read sladshdot again?
Headlines on MS' News: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Headlines on MS' News: (Score:2)
No way... (Score:2)
Mixed in with a bunch of banter about quantum entanglment!
Re:No way... (Score:2)
hmm (Score:2, Funny)
"Tapping into the growing interest to Wintel computers"
At least they're not censoring the news.... yet =)
Impartiality (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Impartiality (Score:5, Insightful)
The more important thing here is this may push google to drop the "our news site is an experimental beta test which can be dropped at any time" attitude and start to really pour some resources in. One thing about competition is that it will help hone the product and google's news site has not really changed since it's inception a while back. I was hoping for some interface tweaks and other enhancements that could make it the killer web app.
Is /, creating the bias? (Score:3, Interesting)
See, it looks like they're judging headlines with a "popularity index" counting how many time users click stories. Since
If this is right... think we co
Re:Impartiality (Score:2)
That couldn't have anything to do with millions of slashdot users clicking through to read an article on the new web news service, could it?
MSN Newsbot Technology Headlines (Score:5, Funny)
Etc... Etc... Etc...
(All this is said firmly tongue-in-cheek, of course...)
Wow, looks A LOT like Google news (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wow, looks A LOT like Google news (Score:2, Funny)
Step 5.
Figure out how to
do an html page
break.
Define "based on" (Score:2, Interesting)
The whole power of the google news is that it is machine generated, and not directly controlled by a human. Remember that MS search engine is "based on" information found on the internet, but if you search for many well known things like say "linux windows" you get far different results than from other search engines (e.g. Google).
Just imagine once they start putting the same filter on the news feeds! I can't wait to see what sort of bias is introduce
What about MSNBC??? (Score:5, Insightful)
At first glance I thought it was a new place to search usenet news. This new "news site" is just plain worthless. It reminds me of the USAToday site.
MS doesn't innovate anymore. (Score:5, Funny)
MS has some really brainy product people: "We need to do something."
"I can't think of anything."
"How about we copy google?"
"Too hard."
"Ok, how about we just copy parts of google?"
"Ok... news. We'll just aggregate."
"Cool... we'll just chip away at Google."
"We've got more money than god... they'll cave sooner or later."
MS buys a hundred Dell servers, hires a contractor to come in and set up the scripting. They hire 2 people to keep the 100 Dells running linux... I meant 50 people to keep the 100 Dell machines running Windows 2003.
MS starts issuing press releases before the contractor is ready. The advertising people have all of the Intel/MS cronies lined up for advertising spots. They start beating on the contractor when the site sucks.
MS starts reporting estimated revenue streams to Wall Street. Everyone is happy. The general public buys Windows XP, they aren't even asked if they'd like their default news page set to MS. It's just done.
Re:What about MSNBC??? (Score:2, Informative)
Comparing font pages (Score:2, Interesting)
Google News: Radio Netherlands British Newspaper Claims Security Breach at Buckingham Palace
One of these is not news can you guess which one?
Re:Comparing font pages (Score:2)
Pfffft
I question your definition of "news" But can you guess which one of your statements is an anti-MS statement just because it's MS?
Not Invented Here. (Score:2)
Trustworthy News Reporting? (Score:4, Interesting)
Great, now Microsoft can collect information on me without having to sneak around. "Your honor, Mr. Public asked us to track his every move when he was forced...UH...opted-in to MSN Newsbot". Of course, they'd _never_ use the information they gather for marketing purposes (ouch! my tongue is wedged into my cheek!)
Quote: Users of MSN Passport can get personalised news depending on their interest during past visits. When logging in to Passport, MSN Newsbot displays news from sources you've chosen in the past.
Passport users? Oh, you mean everyone who uses XP because of that annoying bubble that keeps pestering you to sign-up until you do.
So now I can read all the favourable press on Microsoft, have all my activity tracked and the rest of my privacy compromised so I can have super-specific product advisement beamed right into brain. Gotta hand it to you, Bill, your vast fortunes are eclipsed only by your ability to me, John Q. Public, exactly what I want (ouch! My cheek!)
Why google is better (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see Microsoft matching that for the simple reason that MS is in it for the ads, the traffic and the money, while Google (when it comes to news at least) is doing it because they can and makes them look good (it's more a technological showroom than a add based news service. In fact, they don't sell advertising in that page)
Re:Why google is better (Score:2)
I compared (Score:5, Informative)
The MS got 8 hits while Google got 21. The main difference here seems that Google hits were sourced from newspaper web pages and MS hits came mostly from newswire services.
Re:I compared (Score:2)
That's because MS News is sourced from Moreover, which is a news aggregator that collects a lot of its content from newswire services and the like (often via RSS).
I did a study of Moreover a few weeks back. Unlike Google, Moreover news is not totally automated -- they have editors who manually rank how good they think a news site is. They also markup things like the subject and geographical scope of the site.
Searches on the content itself are powered by an Autonomy search engine (I think).
Because of the h
Litmus test (Score:5, Informative)
First headlines:
Sun Micro Signs China Desktop Linux Software Deal (Reuters)
Leader: Comdex reflects harsh IT realities (Silicon.com)
Brown defends Blair relationship (?? Guardian Unlimited)
"Linux Windows" [google.com] on news.google.com = ~1,800 stories
First headlines:
Intel intros hyperthreading compilers for Linux, Windows (The Inquirer, UK)
Linux-Windows file access (Linuxworld)
An editor to ease Windows to Linux migration (Newsforge)
Interesting comparison... (Score:3, Interesting)
As we saw with MSN's competing search engine, there seems to be some bias in the results...
-T
change name to "MonkeySoft" (Score:2)
Of course you realize... (Score:5, Funny)
Must we help the borg?!
Re:Of course you realize... (Score:3, Funny)
(laugh. its funny)
And it'll be integrated with next IE... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's really a bit like TV makers would have their own TV channels where they would show content made by themselves, and TV sets of their make would only display those channels... Oh, and using a microwave oven that could heat your standard TV dinner would require having their TV set as well or the result would look all funky.
Most popular Stories (Score:2)
# Microsoft tests Web news service ZDNet Full coverage...
# Microsoft tests Web news service DoubleClick Full coverage...
Seems like it's running the same "AI algorithm" engine msn search engine is using. I know I won't be using nor recommeding this news portal to anyone.
Top news searches on their page... (Score:2)
Microsoft tests Web news service ZDNet Full coverage...
Huntley 'said he was last person to see girls alive' Guardian Unlimited Full coverage...
Microsoft tests Web news service DoubleClick Full coverage...
Busted crash to the top BBC Full coverage...
Attack helicopters worth GBP1.2bn will lie idle for years Independent Full coverage...
Now that's fair and balanced!
Moreover.com? (Score:2)
Who are Moreover, and why is Microsoft using them for redirection?
Re:Moreover.com? (Score:5, Interesting)
Also is it tacky to have a headline: "Michael Jackson 'to be arrested'" and below that an ad "Find Michael Jackson Items on eBay.co.uk", and more stupidly, if less offensively: "Airline Network: Cheap Travel to Jackson".
Re:Moreover.com? (Score:2)
2. Moreover's gotta pay its bills somehow. Of course, I use Google's Toolbar for a popup blocker and that gets through the links just fine.
Re:Moreover.com? (Score:2)
Moreover can hardly be called biased... Fucked Company [fuckedcompany.com] also u
Suprise Suprise (Score:2, Interesting)
Check out what 2 out of the top 5 "Most Popular Articles" are:
Ob. S. Q. (Score:2)
s/Powersauce/Microsoft/g;
Slashdot on MSN Newsbot? (Score:3, Interesting)
For example the latest SCO story [google.com]links to the /. headline [slashdot.org]as one of the sources.
On the other hand, the same story on MSN NEWSbot [msn.com] does not provide a link to the /. headline.
But then, Google News lists 66 sources for the same story, while MSNNewsBot links to about 10, so it's hard to say if they're intentionally boycotting our popular Anti-MS site.
I would really love to see their news site regularly updated with /.'s Microsoft headlines :) That'll be fun to watch
Re:Slashdot on MSN Newsbot? (Score:2)
I guess you could count the posted discussion as original content... but what person in their right mind would consider a dozen 'In Soviet Russia 2. ??? 3. Profit!!! overlords welcome you!' useful in understanding a news story?
Re:Slashdot on MSN Newsbot? (Score:2)
If you set your preferences to sort by score, and hide everything below score 3, you actually wind up with a list of comments that are worth reading. All the trolls are gone, and the posts are genuinely Insightful, Funny, etc.
I often don't even read the linked article because I can
Re:Slashdot on MSN Newsbot? (Score:2)
To be honest that was a surprise to me. It's well known that /. isn't particulary impartial and it's reporting is never particulary accurate.
Therefore I would have considered it odd for a news source, even if it is news in the strictest sense of the word.
If I was in charge of a news aggrigation site I probably would leave out /. for that, plus any other heavily biased sites in order to maintain a balanced amount of reporting.
Re:Slashdot on MSN Newsbot? (Score:2)
Unless the story is exclusive to Slashdot, Moreover usually picks another source with a better "news credibilty" reputation and sends Slashdot towards the back of the pile. (Let's face it... Slashdot has a publish first, check facts later policy.) MSN seems to be filtering further by only taking the most relavant stories, so unless Slashdot manages to break into the top 10 you'll never see it.
I guess we'll
MSN Newsbot (Score:2, Funny)
Warning: SQL error: [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]
Line 1: Massive Internal Server Hemmorage ','., SQL state 37000 in SQLExecDirect in
E:\Inetpub\wwwroot\nip-sundown\include\php\
second to the punch (Score:5, Insightful)
M$ launches new search engine
M$ launches music download servive
it seems like M$ is scrambling a little bit, not quite sure what to do anymore. coming to the market second or third works when you can leverage your existing user-base in a controlled environment (think IE or Office).
the trouble is the internet is not really a controlled environment like their os. even with a browser monopoly M$ hasn't really figured out what to do online
so as far as I am concerned as long as M$ is mired up trying to develop their own online services in-house the world is safe.
Re:second to the punch (Score:2)
There will also be options to pick from a list with "keep me informed about".
Microsoft know that if you give someone something pre-installed like a browser, media player, zip utility, photo processing, or messenger, that they are likely to keep other players out because most folks can't be bothered or that the service they get is "good enough".
Personally, anyone let's me near their PC (to fix) and t
Anyone question why... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think I'll try it for a week and see what happens. Reading a few of the other posts here, we can't tell if it's truely biased or not, but also, we probably shoulnd't judge until we've seen repeating patterns. Most folks here *know* what to expect from google, and slashdot, and other news sources. And we can, for the most part we can trust google to be non-biased.
Let's see how this goes...
Re:Anyone question why... (Score:2, Insightful)
Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bugs to iron out (Score:2)
My prediction is that it will make headway among MSN subscribers who don't know any better, and AOL users who are lucky if they don't fall off their chair during the login process. These people will see MSN's News, think that this is how cra
moreover.com? (Score:2)
I went to one of the "More News Stories" pages and then clicked a few links from there. I couldn't get through; all the links are apparently routed through "c.moreover.com," which my ad-blocking Hosts file currently has blocked.
A Google search says Moreover.com is a blog search for businesses. "Moreover launches world first real-time weblog search to offer enterprises access to high value information." Anyone know why a Hosts file would block them?
I can always unblock that line in my Hosts file, of course
Specialized News Aggregate Sites (Score:3, Insightful)
If Google or Microsoft wished to truly compete in one segment (sports, politics, videogames, etc.) they would have to hire editors to manage those sections and provide a personal touch as well as specialized features for those sections.
I am an Editor at GameTab [gametab.com] which is in essence an aggregate site for videogame news and reviews. We are a portal site (much like the Google/MSN news sites) which means that we're trying to be a jumping point for gamers to venture out into other sites. We don't create news ourselves, we merely report what news other sites are presenting and do useful manipulation on the data. In addition we present relevant information such as price deals, developer and fan created box art, torrent files, etc.
For generic news these sites run by corporations are great. They are a strong challenge to outlets such as CNN or MSN.com itself. However, for the many areas of news people will always want that custom feel that they only receive when information is tailored specifically to their tastes.
As momma always said (Score:5, Funny)
Re:As momma always said (Score:2)
Results limited at 999? (Score:2)
Anyone else notice that if you put in a very general search term it claims to only produce 999 hits? Searches for both "Linux" and "Windows" produce this number.
Why the artificial limit? Or is this just another case of wildly inaccurate statistics on the first page of results like the regular MSN search?
On a side note, while the site looks a lot like Google News, it doesn't seem too bad to me. Maybe MS is getting the hint that impartiality of search results is the only way they will compete successfully
longhorn developers get a sneak peek... (Score:3, Funny)
if (section == technology) {
if strFound("linux", "J2EE") {
mod_down()
} elseif strFound(".NET") {
mod_up()
}
}
Good; Shop and Compare (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's good that Google has a competitor to keep them on their toes, honest, etc.
I'd be really curious to know if there is any implicit shading of news happening by use of different technology or explicit policy.
One way would be to do this comparison:
- Use Google's search engine to look up URLs that are critical of Google, favorable to Google, etc. and compare to using MS search engine to lookup URLs that critical of Google, favorable to Google, etc.
- Use MSN's search engine to lookup URLs that are critical of MSN, favorable to MSN, etc. and compare to Google using Google's search engine to look for, again, exactly the same topics.
This might also be done with regard to favorite wavelengths on the political spectrum, too, to see if there's any differences in returned results that indicate a different political weight (intentional or incidental, as the case may be.)Errors with no waiting (Score:2)
Don't have a .NET Passport? To continue, you need to sign in with a Microsoft(R) .NET Passport.
And then on the other side of the page is:
The .NET Passport service is currently unavailable at this Web site for one of these reasons: blah blah further useless error messages.
This is truly awesome.
"Hi, welcome to MSN Newsbot. Before actually reading any
Gooogle has News Alerts (Score:2, Informative)
When MS comes out with a full version of this [google.com], I'll consider going to their site. Until then, I'll just read my email for news...
Google is teh r0x0r.
Interesting comparison (Score:3, Insightful)
vs.
MSN Newsbot search for "Google News" [msn.com]
It's a very telling search that compares the two services rather nicely.
MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:3, Interesting)
More news is good news (Score:3, Informative)
How little do you want to know today? (Score:3, Insightful)
From an early age Americans are taught to consume news from corporations. Too few pause to ask, "What might these giant concerns wish me to learn today? What might they not?" As we see in just the past few years alone, our news industry is as content to serve as a conduit for profitable lies as was the Hearst empire back in its yellowest days. Did you know the sky's the limit for Enron stock, and that the minarets of Baghdad conceal nukes pointing at us?
For the descendents of the people who gave us luminous skeptics of power such as Twain, Bierce and Nast to suck at these monied teats is one thing. For them to suck their fill and think themselves "informed" is risibly quite another.
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN, THESE SITES ARE CRAP (Score:2, Funny)
why why why, must i always get involved with AC's...