Microsoft’s MSN plans book search service — Oh dear Microsoft, can you not make your defensive practices so obvious. I mean, really.
If Google jumped off of a bridge, would you jump off of a bridge?
With Google and book publishers embroiled in a legal drama, Microsoft is entering the plot with an approach more likely to be found in a romance novel.
Microsoft’s MSN unit is working on its own service for searching the contents of books online — trailing rival Google once again, but hoping this time to avoid a major challenge encountered by the Internet search leader.
Microsoft says its MSN Book Search project will differ from Google’s by scanning copyrighted books only after working out deals in advance with the copyright holders.
The Microsoft project, announced Tuesday night, puts the Redmond company on the side of traditional book publishers in one of the key conflicts of the emerging digital age.
It makes sense; Google tripped. They trusted their hacker instincts instead of kowtowing to the almighty Copyright Holders. Of course who really chose most wisely will be borne out in court. Sigh.
These days it’s easier to find something in MSDN or Microsoft’s website by running a search on Google than it is to use MS own search engine.
MS search constantly returns garbage and bogus results while Google always returns the desired content.
I don’t know how they think they can challenge Google if they can’t index and file their own content.
Absolutely — if Google jumped off a bridge, Microsoft would jump off a bridge too. But Microsoft’s bridge would be taller, longer, and much more expensive.
Comment by Fábio C. Martins
Ditto ^ 1 Googleplex