Microsoft's Book Search Reflects Pitched Battle With Google
- By Michael Stillman
Microsoft's Live Search Books matches are easy to follow.
By Michael Stillman
There is a huge battle for internet dominance going on behind the scenes, and while this is not generally a subject for an antiquarian book site, it is showing up even in our field of play. In a strange reversal of roles, Microsoft is the upstart company, while Google is the dominant power. You may not have even noticed it, as Microsoft seems to be making a stealth attack (although Google surely hasn't missed it). Quietly, with surprisingly little fanfare, Microsoft has been building services similar to those offered by Google. Among them is the one appropriate to our field -- book search. A little under a year ago, Microsoft offered its version (still in beta) of an inside the book type of search -- Live Search Books. This is Microsoft's equivalent to Google Book Search. And if much of this seems ripped off from Google (could it be a Microsoft product if it were not copied from someone else?), it compares quite favorably to Google's offering. A few things are better, a few not as good, and much is similar.
Before we look specifically at the book searches, here is a quick note on what Microsoft has been up to in a most quiet way. Microsoft traditionally offered its search engine as part of its web portal, MSN.com. In other words, internet search was provided among a host of other features, especially the latest news. This is similar to the format built most successfully by Yahoo. Meanwhile, Google was rapidly becoming the leading internet search site through a page that featured search only, a stark page with a search box and not much else. Google's search-only format came to dominate internet search, leaving the internet portal search approach in the dust.
Microsoft has never been one to ignore another's successful formula, so it developed its own stark, search only site -- Live Search. If you go to www.live.com, you will find a search page that looks amazingly like -- surprise -- Google. Not only is the plain search box similar, but above it are an almost identical set of secondary links: "web," "images" "news," "maps" and "more." The only one missing from Google's list, naturally enough, is Gmail, for which Microsoft has substituted MSN. It may not be original, but it certainly is a proven formula. The issue for Microsoft is how do you pull users away from Google by offering essentially the same thing? The answer is not clear, especially since they are not doing much promotion. In the past, they have bundled their versions of software with their dominant computer operating system (Windows), but that got them into legal hot water. Perhaps they will again attempt a similar approach, or will try to reinvent the wheel in a superior model. One thing is clear -- they are not about to concede the internet to Google, no matter how large a lead the latter has built up.
Now it's time to look at Microsoft's Live Search Books. Just as to find Google's Book Search you go to the Google home page and click on "more," you go to the Live.com home page and click on "more." There you will find "Books." To compare Live with Google, I searched for "Richard Mentor Johnson," Martin Van Buren's vice-president. He is significant enough to appear in many books, but sufficiently obscure not to appear in too many. The initial results appear a massive victory, at least in terms of quantity, for Google: 617 matches vs. 61 for Microsoft. However, this reflects a different approach, along with a head start, for Google.
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Microsoft's Book Search Reflects Pitched Battle With Google
- By Michael Stillman
Google's book search results page is functional, yet not as appealing as Microsoft's.
The foundation for both companies' book searches is the clearly out-of-copyright books, for the most part, those published before 1923. Both have been accessing major institutional libraries to scan copies of antiquarian books in their libraries. Google, which has been at this longer, has scanned books at Harvard and the University of Michigan Libraries, among many others, Microsoft Cornell and the University of Toronto. Both have accessed collections at the University of California and New York Public. However, they diverge in Google's more aggressive, and controversial approach. Google has also been scanning more recent books, which may still be under copyright, and revealing "snippets" of the text (the full text is provided for out of copyright books). This has resulted in much publisher consternation. They will remove a book if the publisher objects, but it is up to the publisher to do so.
Microsoft, in another bizarre role reversal, is the kinder and gentler giant. They won't provide any text, not even "snippets," of copyrighted books without first securing the publisher's permission. Among the publishers with whom Microsoft has reached agreements are McGraw-Hill and Harvard University Press. However, with this restriction of pre-approval, Microsoft lags Google by a wide margin in listing copyrighted books.
However, remember that Google only provides a "snippet" of in-copyright material. For the most part, the "snippet" is useless if you are seeking information. At most, it tells you that there is a reference to your searched terms in the book, and perhaps a line or two of text. If you want to know more, or even whether the information in the book is of any use to you, you will need to track down the book. Google provides links to buying the book or finding a library with a copy, but even if this does lead to one, it is hardly convenient, especially to a generation expecting data to be available immediately at their fingertips. It is a new technology doorway that leads you to the old technology world. That is not a particularly satisfying experience.
The comparison between Google and Microsoft is very different if you choose to see only those books whose text is fully viewable. Microsoft's "100% viewable" link finds 49 matches, while Google's "Full View" link offers 40. It's a virtual tie (both sides, perhaps Microsoft a bit more, exaggerate the numbers as they have occasionally scanned multiple copies of the same book from different libraries). The result is if you are seeking text that is available right now on the internet (which effectively means material in older books), Microsoft's Live Book Search is comparable to Google's Book Search.
Google's matches come up on a page that looks remarkably like a standard Google results page. Microsoft's look nicer, listings and images attractively set to the left, a larger image and indication of number of references to the search term of each title you scroll over to the right. Clicking on a title with Google takes you directly to the page with the reference, along with links to find it in a library or buy the book at sites like Abe, Alibris and Amazon (though "matches" from the selling sites are generally for something else). Microsoft instead brings you to a large image of the title page, but with links to the side to the pages on which your search term appears. It is very nice.
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Microsoft's Book Search Reflects Pitched Battle With Google
- By Michael Stillman
Clicking on a match in Microsoft shows you the title page plus an index of pages containing your search term.
However, there is one shortcoming with Microsoft's presentation -- there is no scroll bar alongside the text. You have to click from page to page. The problem is that you can't see the bottom third of most pages, and without a scroll bar, you cannot scroll down to view it. The only solution is to reduce the type size, making it harder to read. Google provides a scroll bar so it is easy to see the entire page without reducing the type size. That is one major advantage for Google, but an easily correctible issue for Microsoft, whose presentation is, in my opinion, otherwise a step up from Google. Maybe they are trying to improve on the wheel after all, though Google invented it.
While Microsoft's venture into the world of books is interesting, it is obviously part of a much larger strategy to take on Google. They have mimicked many more of the latter's features. For example, in September we reviewed Google Scholar, a search service that looks for scholarly and academic works. It is a valuable tool for serious research. Well, lo and behold, even this obscure tool has a Microsoft version, Live Search Academic. This may be a niche service, but Microsoft has come up with a competitor.
The one Google service I do not see mimicked is Google Product Search, formerly known as Froogle. This searches numerous websites for products for sale. The Americana Exchange's own Books For Sale book listings can be found through Google Product Search. There is no Microsoft equivalent. I suspect this reflects how each company makes its money. Google's revenue is made almost entirely through advertising. Google provides all of these wonderful services free, and makes its living by running ads alongside of them.
This is a concept entirely foreign to Microsoft. It makes its living by selling products, not advertising. Yes it has followed Google with free searches supported by advertising, just as years ago it followed Netscape with a free web browser, Yahoo with a free web portal. Still, this seemed more motivated by fear than love, fear of being left behind by technology newer than their own. Microsoft does not like to give things away, and it will probably be a bitter pill if it ever is forced to offer free product listings for outside vendors. They really want you to shop outside sites through MSN.com, where they can get a piece of the action.
If Microsoft is edging in now on Google's territory, Google has been doing the same to Microsoft, offering free software to accomplish tasks Microsoft charges for. Once again we see role reversal. When Microsoft designed software that mimicked programs offered by others, their version was often inferior. It didn't matter, as Microsoft had the marketing leverage of the proverbial 800-pound gorilla. Now, Google is the 800-pound gorilla of search, and that may force Microsoft to design superior versions instead. Now one wonders how far behind Microsoft's Googlesque search services will come Google's computer operating system (call it "Doors") offered, naturally, for free.
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