Microsoft sees tailored search as way to pierce Google's armor
SAN JOSE, Calif.--Microsoft believes it's found a way to gain an edge against Google's dominant search engine: a deeper understanding of what people are searching for and what's on Web pages.
Specifically, the company believes examining a full sequence of user queries can lead to more useful results. Today, the company only keeps track of the immediately prior search, but often users use search engines to explore subject areas broadly, said Satya Nadella, senior vice president of Microsoft's search, portal and advertising platform group, at the Search Engine Strategies conference here.
"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," Nadella said.
Many searches are quick operations to get to a specific site, but Microsoft is eying the in-depth operation search has become for many. Half of search queries at Microsoft's search site are part of a 30-minute session spent searching and checking Web sites, and at some point in that half-hour span Microsoft should be able to depart from "one-size-fits-all" search results to a more carefully tailored response, he said.
Of course, that kind of deeper analysis of people's search behavior--which presumably could be accompanied by more carefully targeted and perhaps higher-priced advertisements--could also raise hackles. Basing search ads on a few keywords typed into a search engine is less intrusive than basing them on an entire history of online behavior. Behavioral targeting of ads, though a concept that covers a broad spectrum of possibilities, is under increasing scrutiny.
Satya Nadella, senior vice president of Microsoft's search, portal and advertising platform group
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)Microsoft, which trails leader Google and second-place Yahoo, was thwarted in its effort to get ahead in the search market by acquiring either all of Yahoo or just its search assets. But Nadella takes the long view, arguing Microsoft only started its online search effort in earnest four and a half years ago. The Redmond, Wash.-based company will keep plugging away, trying to take advantage of "inflection points" where search technology changes significantly, he added.
"If we come again and again with innovation that matters, we will have the opportunity to grow our volume and our share," Nadella said. "We made decent progress but we have a ways to go."
A long way indeed. In a meeting with reporters, Nadella said he wasn't happy with Microsoft's share of search queries that's less than 10 percent. And upper management's deep interest in better results is evident not just from the Yahoo acquisition turmoil but from the company's successful acquisition of Powerset, a search start-up banking on natural language processing as a way to better understand Web page content and search queries.
"Bill has definitely not retired for us," said Scott Prevost, Powerset's general manager and product director, referring to Chairman Bill Gates' move to part-time work at Microsoft. Prevost also spoke during the meeting with reporters.
Powerset figures prominently in Microsoft's search work. The start-up's technology only made it as far as indexing and searching Wikipedia, but results, even from that relatively narrow domain, will be used to augment Microsoft's search results, Nadella said.
"You'll see us integrating that with Wikipedia articles," he said.
The Powerset technology can be used to better understand people's search queries and the Web pages that Microsoft's search engine indexes, Nadella added. "We think that tech, natural-language processing, is going to be a very critical way for us to improve relevance further, at scale," he said.
Google is of course a formidable competitor with a massive and fast-moving research effort. And while it may design its search engine for the broadest use possible, it certainly can take a user's search history into account. The optional Web History feature can adjust search results according to users' earlier practices. However, Udi Manber, head of Google's search quality work, said earlier this year that personalization has only a minor effect on the ordering of search results.
Microsoft has other ways it hopes to diverge from the one-size-fits-all approach. For example, Nadella said the company also hopes to redirect the search experience away from a generic interface depending on subcategories people are using, Nadella said, pointing to travel, health, images, and video. "These are the domains where we have domain-specific task-oriented" interfaces, he said.
The company also has ambitions for changing the business behind search, he said, pointing as one example to the Microsoft Live Cashback program, which converts the fees that search advertisers pay to Microsoft into rebates for people who buy products through the search mechanism.
Another business change coming for the search industry overall is the move toward more sophisticated payment schemes. Currently, advertisers pay search engines for ads when searchers click those ads, a model called cost per click (CPC), but the payment model will shifting toward cost per action (CPA), Nadella predicted. CPA requires more activity on the part of a searcher--registering for a service or buying a product, for example--before payment is made.
"CPC is fantastic. It will remain. But there will be additional things (such as) CPA," Nadella said. "We think that will bring next level of efficiency to the search marketplace. We're very bullish about that."
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
This shows how little MS knows about engineering software. They don't have a search engine that works very well, they need to fix that before going after such a radical concept. It would be like making a desktop application more flexible in design before the damn thing works properly. That would add more bugs and more issues before it is even usable.
In other words, yet again MS is ass backwards.
Outside of that, predictive / proactive inquiries based on history of prior visits isn't new. Amazon, Ebay, Google, and yes, even Apple does this in iTunes. I don't think anyone has taken it to this level before which should be interesting. Is this an invasion of privacy or a useful tool? Time will tell. Unfortunately bigots like you will not be willing to open your minds long enough to accept the concept of a new idea.
I wish I was the world's best programmer/analyst as well, so I could write more threads on this board, and also speak so low about the worlds largest software engineering firms. If only.
Folks have little faith in Microsoft because on balance, they've not done a whole lot to earn faith.
"Folks have little faith in Microsoft because on balance, they've not done a whole lot to earn faith."
Unfortunately Microsoft has plenty of ignorant people spouting unbased nonsense as well. Just trying to keep up with correcting the FUD that is spread is becoming a full time job it seems. Even when MS does something good, it's quickly bashed and turned into a hatefest about why they failed to do it earlier, how bad it is, why XYZ is better, etc. All those comments and posts that overlook that in the end, the product in question actually just works.
Then there's Linux. With their OS monopoly threatened, Microsoft spreads blatant FUD about Linux and the GPL for years. When their lies fail to stop Linux, they very transparently try to fracture the open source community with their Shared Source and OOXML initiatives.
I used to admire Microsoft in the 90s but these are the kind of shenanigans that drove me and many others to distrust them. They had me, then lost me and I ain' going back.
...and I don't even have to touch on the other more tangible reasons that even the industry and users alike have no faith in MSFT, like:
PlaysForSure
OS/2
WindowsDefender
HD-DVD
WindowsME
Palladium
...and much, much more...
(and you expect anyone to trust, let alone partner with Microsoft out of their own free will? Err, not unless there's a decent paycheck involved, boyo. :) ).
...where does Microsoft fit into this? More importantly, how do they do it without running into a brick wall of privacy issues?
/P
Microsoft, while vague about their actual plans, apparently wants to cover it from end-to-end - to combine the two results. Now... how do you do that without coming into a bucketload of privacy issues.
Meanwhile, for a majority of users, Microsoft can (and likely does) already gather data on the user's machine (via Windows/WGA), the user's browser (via IE), and now from the default (on MSIE) search engine. Come back and shout your anguish when Google has its own browser and operating system, and maybe I can then agree to your cries of "contradiction!".
@Seaspray: I'm (strangely enough) not a Fanboy - I merely have my preferences. and happily state them in a straightforward manner. That said, I always strive to stick to the facts when I state anything not clearly labeled as personal opinion.
Besides, this has bigger implications than Microsoft, Google, or any one company. Question is: Where do you draw the line at respecting privacy?
Perhaps not possible for the likes of you constant Microsoft naysayers. However, recognizing that software is only as smart as the people writing the code, it certainly CAN be created and done better than it is today. BTW: Google does NOT do contextual search. As a matter of fact their core algorithm hasnt changed much since inception.
I'm not sure which works better. I can see some advantages to both.
You've got a good point though for systems predicting people too well. :)
How hard would it be for a Yahoo programmer to get out of a Yahoo contract if Microsoft purchased the company? An argument could be made that by it's very nature, working for Microsoft is a morally untenable position.
I would have to guess that there are extremely tight rules on what data can be gathered and how that data can be used..i.e. can't use data gathered for one purpose for another purpose...that said, since you question lumping together search data and OS derived data, do you have an issue with an advertiser and search provider housing documents for businesses?...i.e.google and google docs\spreadsheets. Seems to me that scenario has a much higher chance of invading more than just privacy.
I bet that everybody on this website is using or has used something by microsoft, and
liked it..
I use this computer every day, for the past 3 years, that's when I dumped and broke up with Microsoft.
In the server room, it's all Ubuntu Server 64bit. I do have a XP loaded laptop that I use once in a while and a 64-bit XP Pro workstation that I use once in a blue moon too.
Back in the day when I used Windows 2000, I actually liked it. About a year after I bought my Mac I installed a a virus, never found any. On Linux I scan Viruses for fun, only found some viruses that I downloaded for PC software.
As described here, http://kallout.blogspot.com/2008/08/search-is-not-zero-sum-game.html, Aaron Goldman of SearchMedia Insider makes the point that Search is Not a Zero-Sum Game.
This means that Microsoft can win by partnering or acquiring companies that create alternative starting points for search. Aaron describes our product KallOut as one of these "alternative starting points for search." Innovations in how search is invoked, how search suggestions are presented and how search results are displayed are the key to lowering the barriers to search that keep the number of searches per user at a fairly low number of only 2 per day per US user.
Our early data at KallOut shows that the "selection-based search" category that KallOut is creating may be one of the keys to massively growing the Search Query Pie which is currently 100% focused on "browser-based search."
Thanks,
Lee Lorenzen
CEO, KallOut -- a new way to search using only your mouse
- by MattMcGowan September 2, 2008 12:19 PM PDT
- Great piece... apps like FareCast continue to add value and should Microsoft execute on enough of them... who knows what might happen. The only guarantee is that the Search landscape will continue to change in the years to come.
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(36 Comments)Thank you for attending SES San Jose - your participation helped make it successful.