Well, the new Ms. Dewey search engine certainly makes you laugh, but is it useful?

There is a new search engine in town, and it is seriously alluring.

Ms. Dewey is a young librarian doing her best to help you find what you are looking for, but who gets bored if you don’t ask her the right question.

Yes, you heard us! This is a fully animated search engine, based on a lot of video footage of our librarian in a futuristic city landscape (that’s Ms. Dewey on the left).

Slow, but entertaining, searching

You enter your search term in a search form, as normal, and regular search results will appear in a pop up window — eventually, but first the lady will try to tell you the answer.

That often takes a lot of thinking on Ms. Dewey’s side. She looks bored, mischievous, sad, happy or embarrassed, which is all very funny. And the intros (which vary) can be pure entertainment.

However, as a search tool, we’re afraid this does not work at all. The response time is very slow, at times extremely slow. The results are close to unreadable. And there are no advanced search features.

To put it this way: If you ever go back to this site, it is to show your friends how cool it is.

Making Microsoft look sexy

But who’s behind it? The site doesn’t say, but it is actually Microsoft! Which is strange, as it is very unlike Microsoft. However, the search results are clearly powered by the Microsoft Windows Live Search search engine (now, isn’t that a mouthful!).

The Flash driven site is developed by Evolution Bureau, and the site will probably win the company quite a few web site design awards (you know — prizes of the kind that reward web sites that look insanely great, but have no real content and are impossible to navigate).

Ms. Dewey is played by actress Janina Gavankar.

Given that the search engine is dysfunctional at best and that there is no advertising, our guess is that Ms. Dewey is employed as part of a viral marketing campaign, making easily fooled bloggers like us write about her.

Or maybe this is the Microsoft clan telling Apple that they are not as boring as the Apple ads would like us to believe.

Now, where is Jeeves when you need him?

See also:
Web and the City: Ms. Dewey search engine: bling-bling, puns and not much else
Webpronews: More On Microsoft’s Ms. Dewey