A couple weeks ago I heard about Tafiti, MSN’s new search/research project, but hadn’t had the time to really check it out until last night. Visually, I think it’s really cool…even a bit Vista-like. But from a functionality standpoint, I’m not sure I see anything all that ground-breaking about it.

That might not be very fair considering the limited amount of time I’ve spent using it. I’ll also admit that I haven’t put much creative thought into how I could apply this in the “real world,” but whatever.

In all honesty, I’m just happy to see that MSN is still out there duking it out in an attempt to regain some of their lost market-share in the search space. Ron mentioned in a previous post that he’d love nothing more than to see another engine compete with Google and I definitely share that opinion. I don’t know that Tafiti will be the one, but at least MSN hasn’t given up!

You’ll need to download Searchlight to use Tafiti (which you’ll be prompted to do immediately) and I’d recommend doing yourself a favor by reading through the FAQ before you take it for a spin. If you want to save information on the “shelf” you’ll also need to have an active LiveID.

I’d love to know what other people think about this and how they’re using it to their advantage.