Got any cool Search Macro ideas?
In last Friday's update to Windows Live Search, we released the ability to create and manage your own search macros. Now is your chance to create and show off your own personal search engine!
It is very simple to create a macro (you don't need to be a developer or even a computer geek!). When you do a search on live.com, you will see a 'scope bar' with links like Web, News and Images. Just click the drop down link on the scope bar to access macro functionality and get to the simple create and manage UI (you need to login to a passport account to create macros).
The first time you create a macro, you will need to choose a namespace. A namespace is just a short identifier (like a nickname) that is unique to you and is prepended to your macro names, so that you don't have to compete with everybody else for naming macros.
Once you have created a macro, you will be given an option to share it on Microsoft Gadgets, so other users can discover and use them.
Here are some of the macros I created over the weekend:
(rvp is my namespace)
A quick search on Technorati suggests some people have already discovered the macro create functionality and started playing with it. Well, if you create any cool ones, do blog about it!
By the way, as part of Friday's update, you may notice that the scroll bar on the live.com web search results page has been changed to a more 'traditional' looking one, familiar to Windows users. Kudos to the UI team on promptly responding to user feedback on that!
Update: Zachary (Search PM) has added a blog entry about Search Macros on the official search team blog.