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A few weeks ago I wrote an
article titled
How Often Do You Use Local Search? Recently I was checking the
local results in MSN and came across something I hadn't noticed before
or at least I hadn't paid much attention to ... Windows Live Local. Hmm
something fairly new in search from MSN and Microsoft? Windows Live
Local (http://local.live.com/) is powered by their Virtual Earth
technology. I must say that I wasn't really all that impressed with
MSN's Virtual Earth technology when it debuted a few months ago.
However I thought that there were some great features with Windows Live
Local.
One thing that I liked about the
view of the results was that you had the option of road (which is
basically a map view), aerial and bird's eye view which provided clear
thumbnails of the location queried. I managed to generate a great
bird's eye view of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
There are some other pretty cool
features such as the "Scratch Pad" where you can use the Scratch Pad to
save and share your search results, addresses, and custom pushpins that
are of the most interest to you.
If your browser supports ActiveX
controls and you have ActiveX enabled you can use the Location Finder
feature. This feature allows you to display your current location on a
Windows Live Local map by using Wi-Fi technology. You can also use the
Location Finder feature by IP address which attempts to find your
location based on your computer's IP address. This method is not as
accurate as the previous method using wi-fi.
Another interesting feature is
the Permalink feature that allows you to return to Windows Live Local
with the same view as was displayed in your original query. This can be
handy when providing directions to friends or family members who are
visiting from out of town as you can email them the URL with directions.
You can modify your settings in
Windows Live Local to edit the number of results returned (your options
are 5 or 10). You can also set the map navigation to use an animated
pan and zoom (This is the default, to change just uncheck the checkbox).
Windows Live Local is still in
beta and only returns results to centers in the US. I tried a few
queries for businesses in major Canadian cities but was not successful.
Overall Windows Live Local has
great potential but I was disappointed in the fact that I could not find
any Canadian listings and that I could not find an easy way to submit a
business to Windows Live Local. I did like the clear imagery on some of
the results that were returned. If you haven’t already, I would
recommend you experiment with
Google Earth and
Windows Live Local. Personally I think there is a way to go but
this is a step in the right direction as the search engines try to
improve our experience in search. |