Live Search looks and acts just like Google. As usual M$ fail to innovate. Instead they buy someone else's idea in the hope that this will give them an edge in the market place. I won't hold my breath ...

has become the convoluted "╬™ Windows Live™ Hotmail".

As if Windows is a sexy selling point. Or anyone cares about Live.

On the Hotmail login page there's an promo saying we should "Share life as it happens - Get the new Windows Live™ - Free!". www.windowslive.com gets a mention. But there's no link to it!!!

And in any case, they're too late - the world is already "sharing life as it happens" on myspace, youtube, facebook, bebo, flickr...

They want to challenge Google, yet they still cling to the Yahoo-esque MSN 'portal' rather than jump wholesale to a nice clean start page.

One of the reasons for Google becoming a home page for so many people was the simple, clean, "front cover to the internet" look (in a "front cover of an encyclopedia" way rather than and not in a "front cover of Heat magazine" way).

That and the fact that you can find what you're after with Google. Live search is naff.

The one useful thing on Live was the maps - before Google added railway stations to theirs and took away Live's USP.