In MSN Putting Search in IM Beta, Ryan concludes by saying:

This latest search tactic could give Microsoft a leg up on rivals AOL and Yahoo (Quote, Chart). MSN Messenger currently jostles for market share with AOL AIM and Yahoo Messenger.

What he doesn't mention is that Yahoo Messenger has had search plumbing for quite a while (at least a year if Niall was on the ball), thanks to the Search IMVironment. The fact that MSN is just now talking about doing this in a beta product is hardly impressive. The fact is that they've been on a crusade to conquer the web search business for some time now. Or at least they've been making a lot of noise about it.

So what took so long?

Posted by jzawodn at October 04, 2004 11:03 AM

Reader Comments
# jr said:

Don't forget about the "s:" shortcut so you can search from inside of messenger regardless of if you're running the search YIM.

on October 4, 2004 11:46 AM
# Anjan said:

True. But what about Mac users? The search IMvironment only works for Windows. Now I don't use MSN Messenger but their version for Mac is slick and almost the same as the Windows version. Yahoo Messenger looks horrible and has very limited functionality in OSX.

If I wished to have that feature, wouldn't I be forced to use MSN Messenger?

on October 4, 2004 04:01 PM
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