Microsoft Plans to Launch News, Blog Search Services
Microsoft Corp. plans to launch two new Internet search services later this year, as the software giant expands its push into the search technology market.
At a meeting of online advertisers hosted by Microsoft, the software giant's executives said Friday they will introduce MSN Newsbot, which gathers news from hundreds of news sites, and MSN Blogbot, which can search Web logs, or personal Web pages.
Yusuf Mehdi, vice president of MSN information services, said Microsoft is also working on technology that would let Web surfers type questions rather than search terms and get natural language answers. The service will be called MSN Answerbot; no release date has been set.
On Thursday, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told the conference Microsoft had made a strategic mistake when it chose to form partnerships with competitors rather than develop its own search technology. Mr. Ballmer vowed Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., would step up its efforts to compete with rivals, including Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.
Both Google and Yahoo already have news search services, while another search provider, Ask Jeeves Inc., was an early pioneer in natural-language queries.
Microsoft has been testing a beta version of MSN Newsbot in the U.K., uk.newsbot.msn.com, and other countries for several months, said Karen Redetzki, an MSN product manager. The service was developed in partnership with Moreover Technologies Inc., a San Francisco company.
Unlike rival news searches, MSN Newsbot keeps track of a visitor's queries and suggests news articles based on past requests. MSN Blogbot is still in development, but a beta version should be available in the first half of this year, Ms. Redetzki said. Both services will be free to consumers.
微软将推出两项新的互联网搜索服务
微软公司(Microsoft Corp., MSFT)计划于今年晚些时候推出两项新的互联网搜索服务。这家软件巨头当前正在加大开拓搜索引擎技术市场的力度。
微软管理人士周五表示，该公司将推出MSN Newsbot和MSN Blogbot服务，前者从能数百个新闻新网站上搜集新闻，后者能搜索个人网页。
微软旗下MSN信息服务部副总裁Yusuf Mehdi表示，微软亦在研发一种可让网上冲浪者键入问题，而不是键入搜索关键字的技术。
