It often seems like there are more shopping sites than there are products on the market, and Microsoft's property has never been near the top of the list. Yet a new update should, if not rocket it up there, at least move Live Search Products a little closer.
Instead of a sea of images (or "no image available" placeholders), the new Live Search Products offers a well-ordered column of pictures, text descriptions, price ranges, and user reviews. There are also categories (user opinion, brand, category, price) by which the merchandise can be sorted.
It looks really nice, and the results for LiveSide's test search of "MP3 Players" are also quite relevant - the iPod, the Zune, and a Creative Zen product get the top spots. Unfortunately, when you type in "iPhone," an iPhone headset and several versions of the iPod Touch are shown.
Other searches ended with similarly questionable results. Although it represents an undeniable improvement over the old version, the new Live Search Products seems to be hit and miss at best.
Ah, well. The timing of the update is interesting, anyway - people are unlikely do as much shopping as usual in the middle of a recession, but they may become pickier about the process.
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