The search site featuring the witty Ms. Dewey draws its search results from Windows Live Search, which isn't too surprising considering that she is part of a Microsoft awareness campaign.
Forget about minimalist search sites with plain white backgrounds and a single input box in the middle of the page. Forbes writer David M. Ewalt discovered Ms. Dewey, aka actress Janina Gavankar, and her edgy, Flash-driven website hail from a San Francisco design shop, Evolution Bureau.
After being revealed as Ms. Dewey's sugar daddy, a Microsoft representative passed along confirmation and the rationale for giving Ms. Dewey a virtual place to live with a great view of a city and plenty of access to Windows Live Search resources:
"This is not an advertising campaign. This really just an experiment for exploring different ways to introduce people to search and Live Search specifically. We are not promoting the site but simply putting it out on the Web for discovery."
Ms. Dewey has not received universal love. TechCrunch writer Marshall Kirkpatrick harrumphed in a comment on Ewalt's blog about the site:
Really? You thought it was hip and edgy? Have to admit I hadn't even considered the possibility.
Kirkpatrick isn't the only one in the blogosphere demonstrating disdain for Ms. Dewey. Tech Digest called her a search engine with a really annoying personality:
The site may be occasionally entertaining, but it is really annoying to have the character standing there loudly flipping magazine pages while you're trying to research a topic...
Mitch Ratcliffe described Ms. Dewey as "taking cute too far" and said she "is only slightly more pleasant than Scuzz the Rat in Microsoft Bob." Philipp Lenssen simply referred to her as "inhumanly dumb."
It sounds like someone switched the blogosphere's rich Folger's crystals with sweaty gym socks in the coffee maker. Ms. Dewey isn't going to replace anyone's daily Google or Ask or even Live Search habit, but you have to give Microsoft credit for one thing - launching a product that doesn't have a mile long name like their stuff used to have.
