14 DAY TRIAL // Taking Live Search to version 2.0 is not the end of the road for Microsoft's search engine under the Windows Live brand. To confirm the ongoing evolution of its efforts focused on the search engine market, the Redmond company is getting ready to add a new member to the Live search family. Microsoft announced that it has swallowed Jellyfish.com, a search engine dedicated entirely to comparative-shopping, and essentially positioned as a reverse eBay. This means that advertisers bid for the users' attention, instead of the viewers being force-fed online ads. And on top of this, Jellyfish actually shares up to 50% of its revenue with its audience.
"We want to welcome some new folks to the Live Search family - we recently purchased a company called Jellyfish.com, based in Madison, Wisconsin. Jellyfish has done some really innovative work in comparative shopping engines. We think the technology has some interesting potential applications as we continue to invest heavily in shopping and commerce as a key component of Live Search. Stay tuned for more great stuff from our new colleagues in Madison," stated a representative of the Live Search team.
Microsoft failed to offer any additional details, and in no way did any of the two companies disclose the financial terms of the agreement. At this point in time it is also too early to tell how will the Redmond company digest Jellyfish.com. Microsoft did point that Jellyfish will be added to the already extensive list of Live Search components, but MSN also has a Shopping focused hotspot, and in this context, it remains to be seen which path the comparative-shopping search engine will take.
"Jellyfish is a new kind of search engine. We call it the Internet's first buying engine. Search engines are great for finding information, but we think you also need a search engine that is perfect for when you want to buy something online. You use Jellyfish.com just like you would any other shopping search engine to find the right product at the best price. But when you actually buy something from a store in our engine, we share at least half of what we earn by connecting you to that store", reads a fragment of the search engine's presentation on Jellyfish.com.