A Microsoft development team has announced the beta of its Windows Live Shopping site, "built on 100% AJAX technology," the company says, while also integrating Web 2.0 principles.

"The beta launch of Microsoft’s Web 2.0 shopping experience, featuring one of the world’s largest product catalogs, user-created content...uses a unified shopping engine to search or browse almost 40 million products from 7,000 stores ranging from many of the country’s leading retailers to eBay. Results are displayed in an order that is not affected by advertising; merchants cannot pay to have their items show up closer to the top. Users will be able to drag-and-drop items to a shopping list and share lists with friends; see user reviews of products and sellers; and read and create public shopping guides on any subject," according to a note that appeared on a blog at the company's MSN Spaces site.

The blog entry lists drag and drop, lists and guides as "super cool" features, and also touts enhanced preview functionality as well as the enablement of users to "create shopping guides about any subject and link to any set of products in Windows Live Shopping, adding their own comments and insights. Users can rate other users’ guides for their helpfulness. Top-rated guides will be displayed in relevant contexts in Windows Live Shopping."

Microsoft adds that incorporating AJAX "will allow us to execute against this vision with a rich user interface that is modularized to capitalize on the gadgets craze. This Beta offering is just the tip of the iceberg."

The beta can be seen at http://shopping.live.com/.