I'm quoted in today's ITBusiness.ca talking about the platform we're building in the cloud for Rewards and Recognition.  The whole article is good.  There's even a tiny picture of our entire team at the top right.

So no doubt, you're going to see the press/blogs around the US (+ some other markets) as we launch the new Live Search 2.0 experience and you're wondering what about us canucks?  Well I'm happy to say that this Friday we'll be launching our new search experience for us in Canada (and yes in English and French).  So, what's coming?

Better Performance

• 4X the index size (boo-yah!)
• Much better relevance and query intent
• New results UI (fonts, colours, text, sizes, wording, etc.)
• Better integration with Windows Live and Sympatico/MSN (via the standardized header)
• Faster results
• More images in our sick image search experience

On the horizon

• New homepage for Canada
• More kick-ass relevance improvements (like query refinement!)
• Better integration with Windows Live Translator
• Updated mapping experience

Are you excited?  Try it out at www.live.ca after Friday, and send me your feedback.

Important:  Make sure your browser language (in IE or Firefox) is set to EN-CA/FR-CA to ensure the most relevant and performant (is that even a word?) experience.

So Liveside has already noted that pieces of Live Search 2.0 are slowing coming to live the site.  Until more things are visible on the live site, I'll refrain from commenting further.  If you're from Canada you will not see the new homepage (yet!), but make sure your browser language is set to EN-CA/FR-CA for the most relevant experience.  This applies for now and the future :)

E X C I T I N G !

In other news, not sure if anyone caught Beauty and Geek yesterday.  But is it just me or does Google VP Marissa Mayer look almost identical to Beauty and the Geek's Katie in the new season (she's on the beauty side)?  I'm not saying anything about about Ms. Mayer's beauty or geekiness, but every time Katie came on screen I kept thinking back to SES or Searchnomics.

Anyway, food for thought.  Will be interesting to see how far Katie gets.