A Sassy Little Search Engine

Not long ago Microsoft revamped its search engine and rebranded it as Live.com. I think the "formerly-known-as-MSN" new and improved search engine is pretty good. Now they are trying to make it... well, sassy, with Ms. Dewey.

Who’s Ms. Dewey? Excellent question. The simple answer is she’s a sexy and sassy search engine host portrayed by actress Janina Gavankar.

The more complex answer is that Ms. Dewey is a promotional version of Live.com. It's the same search engine but to help draw attention to Live, Microsoft re-skinned it with a, dare I say it, a Subservient-Chicken-esque experience. Rather than a guy in a chicken suit, users get the attractive Ms. Dewey.

Users will gravitate to engines that they feel provide the most relevant results. Having a fun front page is a way to gather attention, and on first pass the online experience is clever and funny. But as a search experience it doesn’t work.

The interface shows very few search results. In my testing, it showed only 3 results instead of the typical 10 users have become accustomed. The window that displays the results is very small in comparison to how much real estate Ms. Dewey is provided. If they want to draw attention to the search results, Microsoft should have made the results the focus of the page.

Next, if Microsoft was trying to make Ms. Dewey sexy, they should not have given her the name of a 3rd grade teacher.

I noticed some interesting replies when typing the names of other search engines, "yo mama," and "Janina Gavankar". If you want to have a little extra fun, type in "how to get you naked." Really. Try it.

While Ms. Dewey is fun for a few minutes, the usefulness wears off with the novelty. Ultimately it does not do enough to highlight the features of Live.com.