At Microsoft: MSN Search and camera phones

I'm one of the so-called "Search Champs" here at Microsoft in Redmond, Wash. to discuss the company's plans for improving its MSN search engine (see below). A new version of MSN Search was just released.

Lots of high powered tech journalists and bloggers are here, including David Weinberger, Chris Pirillo, David Winer, Robert Scoble, Liz Lawley and Buzz Bruggeman.

We're all under NDAs and the bloggers I've just named have written a bit -- but not much -- about the meeting (that ends tomorrow afternoon -- actually this afternoon since it's already "tomorrow").

Search engines and camera phones

But I can post what I've been saying to Microsoft search experts. The meeting is dealing with interesting concepts. What type of information and services would be useful from a search engine?

I'm interested in how search engines deal with wireless and offer value specifically for mobile devices. It seems as if Google (its great search engine notwithstanding) doesn't offer much in the way of exciting or innovative services for wireless-based searching. Or have I missed something?

Perhaps this is an area where MSN Search could take the lead.

Also, with hundreds of millions of camera phones being sold over the next few years it will be useful for Microsoft's search engine (or any search engine) to find videos posted from camera phones. Sure, lots of the videos will be useless, but some of them will have valuable information or be just plain entertaining.

Microsoft groups talking to each other

Microsoft has many resources. It has its search engine team, smartphone team and imaging team. All three groups should get together to explore ways to offer innovative services for wireless users.

Comments

[barry majura]

I WANT TO BUY SUMSUNG PHONE WITH CAMERA WHAT I WILL PAY MONEY ON LINE OR IN EMBERSS PLS TELL ME

[Mads Bjerre]

Actually, Goggle has a pretty neat WAP search feature that most people don't know about:

http://www.google.com/wml

The cool thing is that if you click a search result it parses the page so it is suitable for browsing on a mobile device.