Microsoft just launched their latest gimmick to try and increase their search engine usage market share. SearchPerks, which went live this morning, rewards users for searching using Live Search on Live.com, MSN.com, Hotmail or Windows Live Messenger. Basically, once you sign up and download their “Perk Counter”, you get 1 ticket for every search you do (up to 25 per day), you can then exchange those tickets for prizes like concert tickets, games, airplane miles, etc.
From the offical SearchPerks website, which by the way can ONLY BE VIEWED IN IE 6.0 or higher:
Here is how it works:
- Get 500 tickets just by signing up and downloading the Perk Counter
- Start searching using Live Search at Live.com and MSN.com, or on Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger
- For every search (up to 25 per day), you’ll earn a ticket towards great prizes
- Stay tuned for additional ways to earn tickets once you join the promotion
- Redeem your tickets for prizes once the promotion ends on April 15, 2009
Is it me or does this sound like something from 1998? Does Microsoft really think this is going to work? Here is what will happen, a bunch of web users will do their searches on Live.com until April 15, 2009 – cash in their tickets and then 99% of them will never come back. Microsoft will see their search share go up a few percentage points during this gimmick but will drop back down to their original level when all is said and done.
Seriously Microsoft? Why don’t you focus your efforts on 2 things 1) making your search better , which includes integration of the Powerset semantic search and 2) buy Yahoo search.
