Windows Live Shopping is shut down

As first reported by LiveSide, Windows Live Shopping is now shut down, and users redirected to current MSN Shopping US. This decision is apparently part of the rationalization Microsoft is doing with its Live brand. A responsible of Microsoft declared to LiveSide:

Windows Live Shopping Beta was launched as a technology showcase that paired the vast selection of MSN Shopping with some of the user interface enhancements provided by Windows Live services – Live gadgets, drag and drop, dynamic pages, etc. This test enabled the shopping team to glean valuable insight into user behavior. These learnings are being incorporated into the team’s plans for future products. User-created content from Windows Live Shopping Beta (lists, guides, and reviews) will continue to be available on MSN Shopping. MSN Shopping was and will continue to be the flagship product of our team. It receives the vast majority of user traffic and is the target of all on and off network promotion.

I think it’s good for Microsoft to clarify its branding issues, but I’m disappointed they drop the Windows Live Shopping product, that really impressed me when it was launched almost one year ago.

After reading this annoucement, I had a look at MSN Shopping US – it’s been a long time I didn’t do it – to see where it stands, and had some good surprises, and some less good ones. For the good surprises:

• MSN Shopping integrated some features that were available as part of Windows Live Shopping, like the Shopping list and the Shopping Guides you can create yourselves. The data created through Windows Live Shopping are all available in MSN Shopping, which is pretty good

And the bad ones:

• A pretty poor navigation and look&feel, where the products themselves are not displayed in a readable way. The fixed width, 3 columns layout lets a very small place to display those products.
• The convergence of full-text search experience and browse experience is not as good as on Windows Live Shopping.
• We miss the fancy AJAXified features of Windows Live Shopping, like the magnified product view, the tagging on products…

I really hope MSN Shopping will have a lifting soon :)