People are really going to like that...MSN is coming up with some really interesting stuff like the Encarta thing and local search being implemented into the SERP. Keep it up Bill! And go ahead and roll that thing out.

People are really going to like that...MSN is coming up with some really interesting stuff like the Encarta thing and local search being implemented into the SERP. Keep it up Bill! And go ahead and roll that thing out.

Yeah, you are right!
MSN is preparing something good...
Besides the new search experience, the MSN email or "hotmail" will increase the space to 250 MB!!
Not too bad compared with the 2MB that they already offer...But a little small, compares with Yhoo! & Gmail. ;)

People are really going to like that
They didn't like virtually the same thing on Lycos back in 1997/98, and experiences (http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2163491) of various search engines in the past suggest it will be a hard sell.

I think the key difference and reason I'd have some hope is the implementation makes it slightly more likely people will see the drop-down options. It's pretty easy to slip from the search butotn to the little pointer that makes them come up, rather than with a regular HTML drop-down box.

A sure fire way to make this happen would be that if you clicked on search, the box appeared and you HAD to choose one of the options to get your results. That might help train people not to be so web-obsessed, but the slight delay involved might put too many people off.

Not wholly liking it myself. I think there are better ways to work with that, but it might pick up. It does lag there for a bit as you have to type in a search, so maybe forcing a behavior as to how they want to search as Danny mentioned.

But does the search field seem too small to anyone. I can't help be realize that after typing in more than 2-3 words it gets a bit small. Reason for this? As opposed to something a tad bigger.

What are you guys talking about? It couldn't be more easier. You type in your query, click the dropdown and make your selection...It's great, especially the Encarta thing.