Microsoft’s U Rank Prototype Offers Custom, Social Search

Using results drawn from Windows Live Search, newly-launched search prototype U Rank customises results and share them with others. The project from Microsoft Research is still in development, so bugs are to be expected. It looks like it could develop into a useful tool for group research projects particularly. For individual users, it automatically saves searches privately, and you can choose to share your customised results with others. The site requires registration with a Windows Live ID, and as ReadWriteWeb points out you can’t move search results between pages. It’s a welcome sign of innovation from Redmond, but I’ll be sticking with emailing lists of links to folks for now.