Eager to capitalize on the growing search engine industry, MSN, Microsoft’s web portal, has launched Sandbox. Sandbox is the testing ground for MSN technologies designed to provide a broader search engine presence.
The features available for testing on Sandbox include Newsbot, MSN’s news headline site. The MSN toolbar is available for downloading and testing. Sandbox also features 3, MSN’s venture into the web-networking phenomenon. 3 is similar to friendster.com and Orkut.com, giving members a virtual community where they can connect with friends and family.
The final beta features available on Sandbox are NetScan, TerraServer and TerraService.
MSN offers this description of NetScan: “the NetScan system data mines Usenet newsgroups to provide tools to discover new newsgroups, select high quality content from them, evaluate the likely reliability of the information, and, possibly, motivate participants to make valuable contributions by providing a service that can be thought of as a reputation system for communities.”
TerraServer and TerraService are innovative features from MSN that allows users access “one of the world’s largest online databases, providing free public access to a vast data store of maps and aerial photographs of the United States.” TerraServer users can study maps and images of areas of interest in the US.
Newsbot gathers news from 4000 different sources and delivers searchable results in a manner similar to Yahoo and Google News. According to SearchEngineJournal.com, Newsbot “uses personlaized search to let users view their search history and store past material, a feature MSN calls ‘The Daily Me.'”
The MSN toolbar is similar to other search engine toolbars, giving users the ability to query MSN’s search engine, block popup ads, as well as giving users quick link access to Hotmail, MSN Messenger, and the MSN homepage.
3, MSN’s online community is featured on Sandbox for testing purposes. Members of 3 will be able to personalize an animation on member/friend desktops, simultaneously listen to a shared play list, send digital photos, and initiate group chats with MSN Messenger, making 3 available across three platforms.
These beta features are being made available for testing in an effort to personalize MSN for users, and to take advantage of Microsoft’s desktop dominance.
murdok | Breaking eBusiness News
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