Live.com Upgrade - New Pages and Gadgets, plus Integrated Windows Live Search
Live.com, Microsoft's personalized start page, has just been upgraded with some impressive new features. Live.com program manager Sanaz Ahari sent me details of the release this evening.
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft has said it plans to launch a search engine in the United States and Britain within six months, with a claim of outperforming Google. Folding that search into Live.com makes the personalized start page a distribution surface for the broader search push.
The Pages and Gadgets upgrade gives Live.com more reasons for users to configure and revisit the service, rather than treating search as a standalone destination.
First-order effects
- Live.com users gain Pages and Gadgets alongside integrated Windows Live Search, combining personal page customization and querying in one Microsoft service.
- Microsoft can place its search experience in front of users each time they open a configured Live.com page, supporting its planned search launch.
Second-order effects
- Google faces a Microsoft search offer distributed through a customizable start page, so competition extends beyond result quality to the user’s web entry point.
- Developers and content providers building Gadgets gain a potential route onto users’ personalized pages, making Live.com’s utility depend partly on the breadth of its add-ons.
Third-order effects
- If Microsoft continues tying search to configurable web services, start pages may evolve from static portal destinations into bundled interfaces where personalization determines search distribution.
- The move points to competition among web platforms centered on owning the default user entry point, with search, services, and third-party components reinforcing one another.
The trend: Web platforms are bundling search with personalized, extensible home pages to turn repeat visits into search distribution.