Windows Live? What?

November 1, 2005 · 8 Comments

So there's some buzz out there about something called Windows Live. Click. Wait. Hmm, a search bar. And? Nothing. No message, no other text - just a white screen with a search bar. I type something in and click "Search" and get an MSN search results page. So this is some minimalist interface to the MSN search engine? I check the activity window on Safari. 220Kb of JavaScript ("atlas") was downloaded to no avail. Wonder what it does? Open the page in IE for Mac. Same search bar, same blank page. OK, so whatever Microsoft are up to doesn't even work in their own browser. Let's try Opera 8.5. At least it's consistent: search bar, white screen. No messaging. Finally I try Firefox and get a pretty messed up looking screen and a pathetic message saying "Firefox support is coming soon. Please be patient :-)" Oh, you could be bothered to sniff for Firefox but none of the other browsers? Not even your own Mac browser? How amateur. Hey, Microsoft, why don't you check out Google's personalized home page to see how cross-browser drag'n'drop HTML / JavaScript stuff should be done?

View count: 231

Tags: microsoft · personal

8 responses so far ↓

1 John Dowdell // Nov 1, 2005 at 9:36 PM

They did get a lot of a-list bloggers to write up the event, though.... ;-)
2 PaulH // Nov 1, 2005 at 10:27 PM

while it is kind of lame, it does have some interesting g11n "nubs" which google's portal doesn't seem to have: more than one language/locale to chose from,international weather forcasts, etc.

i guess we'll see how this plays out.
3 Peter Tilbrook // Nov 1, 2005 at 11:19 PM

Yeah but Google is still too US centric to be of real use so am sticking with MyYahoo which has been my default page for several years.
4 chris // Nov 1, 2005 at 11:20 PM

Ahh one of the biggest problems of Web 2.0 here we come. We need a browser designed specifically for rich experiences. Flash, XAML, all this kind of stuff runs poorly in browsers. Look at how well the iTunes website fits in with iTunes. I want something like that, and I dont want my browser to chug or make goofy noises when an event is triggered. It almost seems like trying to teach a dog new tricks.
5 johnb // Nov 2, 2005 at 12:08 AM

you'll find that www.start.com works nicer in firefox - it's another MS domain for incubating stuff - looks like where windows live has come from. It's pretty similar to www.google.com/ig which i'm really enjoying using.
6 djw // Nov 3, 2005 at 2:24 PM

Gee, I *like* the layout of the results pages! When they ripped off the Google layout they even kept the same colours!
7 Cliff Meyers // Nov 4, 2005 at 10:30 PM

I guess we've all become accustomed to Google's high quality "beta" programs that when we see one that sucks it comes as a suprise! I'd still expect more from a company with $40 billion in the bank.
8 Philipp Cielen // Nov 11, 2005 at 5:04 AM

btw - the site now runs fine on Firefox.

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