Microsoft created elements of its own local search engine and community, MSN Local, starting in the mid 1990′s.  Today, they’ve merged the service and its elements with Windows Live Search (http://maps.live.com/) and MSN City Guides (http://cityguides.msn.com,) both useful resources for people who want information about local businesses, events, and other information such as traffic, weather and driving directions.

Brief History

Microsoft’s first attempts at localized search engines and landing pages was MSN Local.  Much like other local sites such as Yahoo Local and later Google Local, the site focused on presenting local information in a simpler, easier manner. 

Later, through mergers and partnerships with other companies, Microsoft expanded the local offerings to City Guides and maps with searches – now Windows Live Search.

How They Work

 While both current MSN Local versions, City Guides and Live Search, offer the same information, they present it differently.

MSN presents City Guides in more of a news magazine style, with headlines and features highlighting key city locations and features.  A user browses through the headlines and menus, or types a search term and location.  Results appear in a simple list that includes links to directions.  The user can add locations to a “been there” or “plan to go list” – a feature people use for planning vacations or other trips.

Live Search presents a simpler approach, formatted more like Google’s successful search engine with a simple page – it contains a search bar and a map.  The search menu includes five sub categories, representing five different search types – businesses, collections, people, locations and web.

Collections is the most interesting.  With it, people create their own information categories, like bookmark folders.  Collections listings include links to Wikipedia entries, directions, and a send link so people can easily email information to others.  Examples for collections people create include:

• Vacation destinations
• Businesses for a job search
• Interesting Restaurants

There’s no restrictions or limits on what people place in categories.

Categories: Glossary
Tags: google, google local, local results, local search, msn local, wikipedia, yahoo, yahoo local