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Just Released: MSN Shopping Instant Answers on MSN Search

Today we released a new feature on MSN Search called MSN Shopping Instant Answers. MSN Search Instant Answers are designed to provide better access to highly-relevant information with immediate utility. At the end of the day, we hope we can connect people more quickly with the information that they need.

For relevant searches, the Shopping Instant Answer will provide the top three most popular products, attributes, and prices from the enormous MSN Shopping product catalog. From the answer you can also perform a side-by-side comparison of top products and get to our full product listing where rich shopping tools are available to help you easily find the product you’re looking for. 

Here are some examples of Shopping Answers:

We’re really excited about this feature, not just because we think it’s useful, but also because it represents the first of many scenarios on the way where search and shopping work better together. This is just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve had fun working on it, and we hope you find it useful. Please send us feedback and your ideas on how we can make it even better.

Below are some screenshots of the all new MSN Shopping Instant Answers on MSN Search.

Search for digital cameras

Search for women's boots

Mackenzie Steele
Group Program Manager
MSN Shopping

Published Tuesday, November 22, 2005 12:04 PM by msnshopblog

Comments

# re: Just Released: MSN Shopping Instant Answers on MSN Search

I think the MSN search team should be a little concerned with how much advertising is pushed to the consumer when the shopping results are at the top of the page. If I am looking to purchase a digital camera I might be happy with the results but if I am looking to search the "web" for “digital camera”, I feel like my search results are a 4th class citizen (e.g. Sponsored sites (top), Sponsored sites (side), MSN shopping results (middle), web results (bottom).
Wednesday, November 23, 2005 8:58 AM by Gabe

# Shopping Answers pretty weak

This is some pretty weak stuff, technically, unless I'm totally off base:
Obviously the results come from a pre-defined list of matching keywords. How do you manage that list? How big is it?
AOL already has this feature from Shopzilla, I think:

http://search.aol.com/aolcom/search?encquery=f5717da8d8eb9202c75e66e256e0ee08664679943d7adf58&invocationType=aolcomsearch&ie=UTF-8

They put it at the bottom of the page, but it's the same thing, and it seems to match a hell of a lot more results. So I'm inclined to think that theirs is either an insanely large list of keywords, or it's matching dynamically via some intelligent algo.
Thursday, December 15, 2005 5:25 AM by Jake

# Just Released: MSN Shopping Instant Answers on MSN Search · Online shopping

# MSN Shopping Insider Just Released MSN Shopping Instant Answers on | Paid Surveys

# MSN Shopping Insider Just Released MSN Shopping Instant Answers on | Wood TV Stand

# MSN Shopping Insider Just Released MSN Shopping Instant Answers on | Best Eye Cream

# MSN Shopping Insider Just Released MSN Shopping Instant Answers on | Cellulite Creams

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