MSN personalized search by December?

In a recent Search Engine Watch article, a interesting tidbit from MSN:

MSN is pursuing what [Chris] Payne called "implicit personalization." He hinted that the personalization technology used in its recently launched NewsBot service will migrate over into the mainstream web search service the company plans to launch later this year.

I've been trying to figure out what this means. Chris Payne seems to be claiming that MSN will be rolling out some form of personalized search by the end of this year. Seems ambitious. From the reviews ([1] [2]) of MSN's new search engine, they've got a long way to go between now and December to even match Google and Yahoo's current offerings. Personalization is something you do after you've nailed the basics. I wouldn't expect to see a competitive personalized search product from Microsoft any time soon.

Chris also seems to be claiming that the personalization technology developed for MSN Newsbot can be transferred to MSN Search. This is also surprising. News is very different than web search. Different data and different problems require different approaches. Findory is developing our own personalized search product. The techniques being used are quite different than the personalization for Findory News.