Microsoft officially launched its long-anticipated MSN Search February 1. The software giant also announced a major advertising campaign to promote the service as a better alternative to Google, Yahoo, and other search engines.
MSN Search is available in 10 languages and 25 countries, and lets users target searches to the World Wide Web, news, images, music, desktop, and Microsoft Encarta online encyclopedia.
If a user searches for a recording artist, a song, or an album, for example, Microsoft said the results will include links to song samples and offers to buy and download the songs from MSN Music.
MSN Search will replace former partner Yahoo's search listings, the software emperors said, but they didn't say whether they would keep using paid search listings from the Yahoo Overture Services after 2006, when their contract expires.
Currently, Google provides 34.7 percent of all searches, with Yahoo (31.9 percent) and MSN (16.3 percent) right behind.
The planned ad campaign is aimed at reaching 90 percent of American consumers and several million around the world, Microsoft said, including ads during the NFL’s Super Bowl game and the Grammy Awards broadcast, according to vice president of MSN Information Services Yusuf Mehdi.
"This built-from-the-ground-up version of MSN Search provides an infrastructure that enables us to rapidly innovate and give consumers precisely the information they're looking for, no matter where it's located," Mehdi said at the MSN Search launch.
