Microsoft's Ballmer vows MSN relevancy equal to Google.

I heard that Steve Ballmer of Microsoft has been saying lately that MSN will soon have relevancy that is equal with Google. The way Google's been messing around with their algorithm lately, that may be true. When Microsoft says something like this it means they're serious about taking first place in this product category. I don't think it's so much of a question of whether they're going to be relevant as Google, but rather that they are going to be as pervasive. It's really not about the relevancy as no search engine can have identical relevancy. They all have a different flavor of algorithm, and as long as they do there will be choices for consumers on relevancy. What MSN needs to do is to continue to promote the brand MSN superior to other offerings. Of course that's going to be difficult because Google and Yahoo are probably ahead of MSN in the minds of people. How does one change mindshare? You really don't, all you can do is to be consistent with what you have, relevant and wait for the other guys to blink. MSN is in third place right now and third-place isn't the place you want to be. It can be done with money I suppose and Microsoft has a lot of money. But with the Internet the way it is these days, how people feel about a search engine is as important as the relevancy. There's a certain brand loyalty that can't be bought with dollars unless an algorithm changes so much that it destroys relevant search results. Sometimes people in the search industry wonder about Google and how they've changed their algorithm so many times. But it's their search engine and they can do whatever they want to do with it and that's the same with MSN. They can do whatever they want and no one should count out Microsoft's ability to influence the marketplace. It should be interesting to see what they put forth as more relevant in the future. The thing that will probably turn things around for Microsoft more than anything else will be when the next version of the operating system as a complete integration in search. Then most people will not feel the need to go outside of their desktop operating environment, but we'll see if Mr. Ballmer is right.

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