Is it Live, or is it MSN? - Neither… it’s Microsoft

21st December 2006

When you think about the Microsoft search platform, do you call it “MSN”, or “Microsoft” or “Live”?
When Microsoft first began development of their new search engine, MSN was not utilizing it yet for searches. When discussing any examples of Microsoft search, it was necessary to call it “Live” to distinguish between it and the old MSN.  You couldn’t accurately refer to Microsoft search without clarifying whether you meant MSN or Live.

This summer however, “Live” and “MSN” search both began returning identical results, using the “new” search engine, further confusing the issue.

This week I sent a customer an email and ended a sentence using the words, “…in Google, Yahoo and Live” Of course, the reply came back “What’s Live?”.
When I replied that MSN Search has morphed to “Live”, I realized that I should probably call it “Microsoft” again, so people know what I’m talking about.

Most people have not even noticed the switch, and I was surprised myself when I first saw that a search at MSN now shows the “Live search” logo at the top, and a “Back to MSN” graphic on the right.

The problem is that the URL in the address bar for a search from MSN is still showing MSN.com, and not a LIVE.com, like you get if you begin your search from the Live.com home page.

Why is that a problem?

Well I guess it’s not, as long as you don’t mind people being confused. I thought Microsoft was trying to “brand” this new platform, of web services called Live.com. So why not take people from MSN when they search, so that “Back to MSN” actually means that you’ve left MSN in the first place?

Far be it from me to give marketing advice to Microsoft, but if you want people to think of a new brand name, shouldn’t you actually start to use it? Actually, I’m talking about it, so maybe this is just a clever marketing ploy to generate discussion and build inbound links to Live.com?

There, I’ve removed the link that was in my fist paragraph, just in case
Anyway, I’ve long called it MSN, but since it’s not MSN any more, but still not exactly “Live” either, I guess I’ll have to call it “Microsoft”, until their next new version.
Hmm, what other things might we call “Microsoft search”?