We’re pretty big fans of Microsoft’s new Silverlight platform. And just about everyone will agree that Tafiti, a new Microsoft search site built on Silverlight, is pretty darn easy on the eyes. They even got the Jackson Fish Market team (they are creating new visually stunning products) to help out on the project.
But will many people use it? It still uses Microsoft search, which in my opinion is not as relevant as Google or Yahoo. And the site, while pretty, runs very slow.
I think people want fast results served on a clean white page with as little clutter as possible (example). Bells, whistles and pretty graphics are fine, but functionality rules.
That being said, Microsoft isn’t out there claiming that this is their new search paradigm. It’s an experiment to show the power of Silverlight, and at that it succeeds.
It is nice to see Microsoft stepping up their design quality, but, even as a designer I’m not going to use something powered by MS Search.
Not to mention it doesn’t support Safari 3 yet.
hey, at least it works on firefox.
I remember, back in yesteryear, when Yahoo had basically the same interface as Google does now. Mind you, this was at least ten years ago.
I never did understand why Yahoo and it’s siblings moved away from the simple, clean, user – friendly interface and decided to add stock tickers, discussion forums, news articles and other distractions. Can’t a search engine assume that, were someone to want those things, that they would search for it.
Moreover, what practical elements can a new search service offer that Google doesn’t already have?
form over function.
This is what happens when designers build web applications.
No support for Linux? Microsoft FTW. Evil Corporation . . Engage!
@mike – re: firefox.
not on mine. I downloaded the silverlight runtime on my macbook pro, rebooted firefox – and now I get a password prompt for http://tafiti.com. I happen to like some people on that team, so it pains me to see more supporting evidence for my bias against Microsoft. Silverlight will not succeed because upper mgmt sees cross-plat as a tactic – not a strategy.
I love this and it is beautiful. Works great for me in Firefox and the rotating Tree view is pretty cool. If (a very difficult if) the search results can be improved I would consider using this. Its tough to create something new and interesting in the search game and I think they did that here.
More weirdness. I clicked the tafiti link in my previous post and it had an appended ‘.’ at the end. This caused the tafiti site to list the contents of the directory – which I saw briefly. When I refresh my browser, I now see a “This Virtual Directory does not allow contents to be listed.” error. Wish I’d taken a screenshot.
Looks pretty but I like a little “google juice” under my search engine hood.
Google is to search like Trojan is to condom… I mean, killer is to O.J… er you know what I mean..
Ok – a little weird. If I hit refresh a few times on this link:
http://tafiti.com.
Hi Michael,
MS also have Popfly, the same concept: beautiful, not used. Are they getting experts in this strategy? What about the so popular three days ago, the Tabletop, also JUST beautiful?
Mario Ruiz
@ http://www.oursheet.com
Ugh – my previous post was truncated for some weird reason. Bottom line – I appear to be able to access stuff I shouldn’t. Example: http://tafiti.c...%2fdefault.aspx
So, I have to download something to use a search engine? No thanks.
I am a regular reader, but maybe one of the few designers that stops on by the big NerdCrunch.
Hey Mike A – Newsflash – Jackson Fish Market really isn’t the “bomb dig”
Here are a few design/dev firms doing better work – most still rely on the ol’ flash portfolio unfortunately, but get past that and look at the product.
http://www.odopod.com
http://method.com
http://contentfree.com
Those interested in another search mashup and visualization tool may want to visit http://www.searchcrystal.com, which lets you search and visually compare multiple engines in one place.
You can remix and share results from web, image, video, blog, tagging, news engines as well as Flickr images or RSS feeds.
Fred Wilson just mentioned searchCrystal on his blog: http://avc.blog...rchcrystal.html.
@Thomas:
That’s because Yahoo considers their home page a portal, not a search site; whereas, Google considers its home page a search site.
Yahoo Search: http://search.yahoo.com/
…is comparable to…
Google Search: http://www.google.com
Yahoo portal: http://www.yahoo.com
…is kind of comparable to…
Google News: http://news.google.com
Google has struggled to get more people to their other properties where Yahoo has struggled to get more people on their search. They have similar, yet opposite problems in their reach and design.
Michael,
What does it do?
So many of the comments seem to ignore (what seems to be) the major point of the article – tafiti is an experiment to show the power of Silverlight!
Thomas – Yahoo is a portal with a search engine. Google is a search engine with some portal type features. Maybe they should each just stick with what they know best to succeed (last time I looked yahoo was still the most visited site in the world). I personally like a lot of yahoo’s features, and use google for search. Don’t send us back to DOS where it’s just black and white text on plain screens
Walllop.com also had a nifty UI.
Er, http://www.wallop.com/ – Accidental extra “L” there.
Get a Grip!
MSN must get a few things right before they can experiment:
(1) Relevancy
(2) Index size
(3) Query Speed
(4) User Interface
In my mind they fail the test (C- at best) in all of these areas. They need to score a solid B+ before they have a right to experiment. Their web business is a joke – time will eventually run out on these guys if they don’t get a good search product on their site.
Oops: here the searchCrystal URL without comma at the end
http://www.searchcrystal.com
@Mario Ruiz – I have played with popfly but is too raw for me at this point.
It’s going to take a bit more time before people participate in a paradigm shift into using Silverlight/AIR for development. I would give it 1 to 1.5 year before we see more adoption. Nonetheless, this is already a pretty cool proof of concept.
Jason: I followed your links and also got access to a number of folders which should not be public. I have contacted Microsoft about this.
I’m amazed that TC gives so much support to a system that doesn’t run on Linux. It appears I have a major misconception about TC’s support for systems that support platform independence and openness.
The idea of installing something first before using it is a real turn off.
@Michael Stone:
I would agree on (A) Relevancy and (B) Index size but Microsoft, IMHO, has been making *extremely* impressive strides in (C) speed and (D) UI. Try out live.com and I find the speed has *exponentially* gotten better (tafiti is horribly slow in comparison but live.com is better than Y!search) and the interface is nice on eyes too.
While they still have catching up to do on the relevancy, I personally find they have come pretty close to Google/Yahoo (atleast for the kind of searches I perform perhaps). I haven’t had to use Google for the past 1.5 years now — Yahoo and Live it is. So much for can’t live without Google, my ass!
Ahh meant Live.com is *faster* (if not better yet) than Y! Search in the post above!
Agreed people want their search results “on a clean white page with as little clutter as possible” but whats with including firefox as the browser in the link?
http://www.goog...lient=firefox-a
Interestingly, mistyped live.com urls in Hebrew lead to a Google search!
That’s what I found, by mistake of course..
http://communit...d-livecom-urls/
Pretty, but yes a little slow. Seems Ms wants to get Silverlight programs out there in a number of ways and just see what happens. Time to experiment. Did not seem like they put a ton of time into this. Nice, but don’t see it gaining attraction unless they can make it faster, sweeter, with a better entertainment value.
It’s UGLY. clearly made by someone trying to showcase the flashiness of Silverlight without good UI design in mind. Reminds me of websites that were created when adobe flash first came out. exercise some restraint! Try http://www.picnik.com/
Why won’t techcrunch write this way? — “Microsoft Tafiti is beautiful, but Will Anyone Use it?”
Thomas –
>
Yahoo decided they were a portal first and a search engine second. Their objective became to keep people on the site rather than send them off elsewhere.
- Matt
It’s one nice Silverlight app I must admit. Search…probably not.
I like it and I’m going to use it.
Umm… yeah, looks nice.
But I actually spent more time on launching Firefox (I use Safari), installing Silverlight and relaunching Firefox than I will ever spend on using this as a search engine.
Applications like this are best suited for children, brand it with “SpongeBob”, or “Dora the Explorer” and they would love it and it would be useful. As a general purpose application for adults and or business people, probably not.
now only if Google was built like this….
Microsoft’s search has a long way to catching up to Google. But all search is still pretty primitive.
hardly beautiful, the opening crappy looking piece of paper ? come on.
lots of sliding about once you get in, but sliding about for the sake of sliding about is hardly beautiful.
man, I still can’t get passed the crappy paper at the beginning
Over-design. Do I really need the visualizations of wood-grain, post-it notes, worn paper and lazy susan navigation to execute my search. Sure, all these things are exhibitions of Silverlight, but it seems like search is not the territory for such exhibition.
Although it’s not necessarily useful, the Full Screen “tree view” is pretty cool… and even in Mac Firefox the fonts look ultra-clear (at the full-screen size)!
I watched the walkthru video in the faq and I think the intent is more towards research than casual search. So I’m not sure if it’s fair to compare 1:1 to Google or even Live Search.
If I’m going to be spending time in a search application doing research, I think I’d like to have a richer experience like this.
from site: “Silverlight requires Windows or Mac OS X”
kiss my ass!
huh
Nothing new here. You could have done this with flash years ago and it doesn’t really add much to the search experience. You are so caught up in the graphics’s that the results tend to fade to the background. If that is all that silverlight brings to the table I don’t see why developers should choose it over Flash, Flex or Air?
I just re-read the puff piece on Silverlight, chuckling at the ridiculous comments like “makes flash/flex look like an absolute toy” and “makes AJAX look like a bicycle”.
Well that was back in May, so it looks like they spent the last few months slowing the fucker down to give Adobe a sporting chance. How else to explain the excruciatingly slow performance?
I guess to anyone who wasn’t being paid my Microsoft it would be obvious that here’s nothing there that couldn’t have been done in Flash years ago, and faster.
I’m not going to even start on the design, I mean if you like it that’s cool, each to their own etc. But holy crap. It’s horrible.