Starting December 1st I changed my search defaults from Google to Live Search. “Are you mad?!!?!?!” I hear some of you calling out … Well yes and no. To start with it's only for a week, unless I think it is a real improvement.

Early this year Steve Ballmer did one of the Keynotes on the 2008 MVP Summit and was checking what part of the audience used Google, Yahoo, Live Search or other search provider. Google was as expected the one used by the overall majority of the audience.

Steve was very clear at time and admitted that Live Search needed more work to make it a better search engine. But he also challenged the attendees to switch for one week from your default search provider to Live Search and after that week provide feedback on what you think works well or doesn’t work at all.

Quote:

“I'm going to ask you one week switch your default, one week. At the end of the week…I'll want feedback, how was your week, what happened, what did you like, what didn't you like … Can I make that deal with you? (Cheers and applause.) That's the deal.”

So here we go … get into your Explorer and change the default provider to Live Search for a week. After that week make your new decision, revert back to your preferred provider, and make sure you are heard when commenting on the challenge. Either comment on this blog item or post your feedback at the Connect site.

For now I accepted the challenge and will decide what will be my search engine after using Live Search for at least one week.