Blog chatter is hinting heavily about an impending launch of Microsoft’s answer to Google Scholar, apparently called “Windows Live Academic Search.” This will be a new part of the Windows Live service line. At least one blog has broken with the press blackout placed on the heavies invited to Redmond last Friday.
Aside from wondering what the site will offer, considering how the purveyor of SciFinder Scholar sued Google over the “Google Scholar” name, I’m also curious if EBSCO, the publisher of the Academic Search™ line of databases, has anything to say about Microsoft’s name choice.
live.com
As much as I hate to admit it, Microsoft is doing some damn good work with live.com. This should be interesting to see once it’s rolled out. The MSN Virtual Earth has images and an interface that is better than Google Earth, the other search stuff is getting there as well.
I’m still relucatant to give up on Google though, old habits die hard, and that should work to Googles advantage!
End of subscription databases?
It makes me wonder, with more free search tools like this….
Traditionally, prestigious journals charge to have their contents indexed. With more things like Google Scholar and Microsoft Live Academic Search, is this position losing footing?
It’s like the switch towards pay-for-listings in web search engines a few years back. Early search engines and directories were more than happy to spider and index any content they could to gain market share. But as they did, they started using that advantage to bill sites wishing to be listed.
So what’s to stop scholarly presses from having to enter the SEO marketplace themselves, now that the finding tools are becoming freely available online? Is this the beginning of the end of libraries having to pay hefty prices for subscription research databases?