The new Beta version of MSN Search is, on several fronts, better than Google. The main one is a feature that I need all the time: Type a search such as “Capital of France” and you get a straight answer from Encarta. That blows Google out of the water. And it still has my favourite bits of the Google idea: Type “Define x” and it gives a dictionary definition, and it’ll do calculations to, and there’s an image search application. The Desktop Search application is better integrated with Outlook than windows, and will work from the Desktop Search Bar. There isn’t a UK biased version of the Toolbar Suite yet, but if this arrives before Google’s version, I’ll be switching allegiance.

The Newsbot has come out of nowhere to be (in my opinion) better than Google News.

Once these get out of beta and well integrated into the desktop, Google could be seriously threatened.

So MSN is my ‘big tip’ for 2005.