I will be the first to state that I welcome any new progress in search, whether it comes from Yahoo!, MSN, or another third tier search partner in order to break up the natural monopoly Google owns.  That is why I am excited, albeit hesitant, with the news that MSN is working on a more improved search engine.  I have always felt that MSN has the potential to do well for the user who is using search in order to find the information that they desire.  So with that, I am excited of the news that has hit most of our inboxes this morning, that MSN is testing their new code, named search engine Kumo, internally.

Kara Swisher at the WSJ Blog, BoomTown, reports on the new features and actually has a few screen shots.  I like the clean look that Kumo seems to be trying to achieve, and that the features navigation is on the left side; definitely a way to breakout and be different from Google’s across the top navigation.  I have always found Google’s to be somewhat cumbersome if you are wanting to use one of their other features around the particular KWP search that was performed, i.e. product search needs the searcher to click on the “more” link in order to drop down the Shopping section of Google.  MSN’s navigation has the potential to provide all features that they offer in a single view navigation.

MSN has the Sponsored Ads across the top and down the right hand side.  I would have found it interesting to see them try to go with a different ad placement than the one we all know so well.  They most likely did not due to the fact that MSN’s need to succeed here far outweighs their ability to be cool and cutting edge.   I do like that the ads on the right side are now not dropped below their Related Searches box.  I am sure there are searchers out there that used this feature, but I never found much value in it.  Another noticeable difference is MSN now seems to be providing Images in every search, obviously where appropriate, but even though this is a departure from what MSN has done in the past, it is still common practice for Google.  It is definitely a step in the right direction since there has been much ink spilt about how Image and Video searches are increasing and now have become part of the information grab that searchers are looking for.

I am very interested about the hover feature, considering even Google (the best on the block) has a hard time conveying in their short description of the results on the SERPs why exactly a particular page is going to answer all of your questions.  It would be a great use to the searcher if the hover feature pops up a mini version of the web site, maybe filling the screen about a third.  This way it would be large enough to actually be a benefit to the searcher but not so much to consume the SERP.

The only item that has yet to be addressed is that MSN states a major reason for this “upgrade” is that 40% of searches go unsolved.  Even though I do like the new design much better than the Live version, it still doesn’t draw the connection on how Kumo is going to answer that 40% of unanswered searches.  This point is not lost on MSN and I am sure one that (hopefully) time will tell.

Kumo image courtesy of Search Engine Land