Microsoft Still Needs Help Understanding Search - It's Been Done Before
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As I mentioned in the introduction, this isn't the first time that Microsoft has gone after searchers with some kind of reward to get them to use its search engine. Last year it ran "MSN Search and Win," a contest of sorts where users of MSN Search could win prizes instantly ranging from a Starbucks gift certificate to a Panasonic high-definition TV. The five-month-long promotion, according to Adam Sohn, director of global sales and marketing for Windows Live, "drove tens of millions of queries and for a relatively small amount of money."
Microsoft isn't the only company to consider this kind of scheme. About the same time Microsoft came out with MSN Search and Win, Yahoo surveyed its Yahoo Mail customers to see what incentives would entice them into designating Yahoo as their primary search engine. The ten-item list included things such as free music downloads, a Netflix discount, donations to charity, and PC-to-phone calling credit. Yahoo ultimately decided not to create a rewards program.
Still, such programs are time-honored traditions in other industries; just think about airlines and frequent flier miles. There are a number of reasons why Microsoft's version might not work as well as the airlines' programs, however. Just looking at frequent flier programs among business travelers, it's easy to see that employees benefit from earning the miles, but their companies pay for the product. As Mara Lederman, an assistant professor of strategic management at the University of Toronto points out, "If the fare for your preferred airline is $100 more, you don't care because you don't pay. You just want the points because you want to take your family to Hawaii."
Internet search doesn't cost the searcher anything whether they're searching on Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live, Ask, Searchles, or any of hundreds of search engines. But Lederman notes that "there's no reward going directly to the individual carrying out the search." In other words, the business as a whole might have an incentive to earn money from Microsoft, but the employees within the business will look at it, think "What's in it for me?" and not see any point to using Microsoft Live rather than Google.
Indeed, there's still plenty of reason to prefer Google in a work environment. If Google delivers more relevant results, it makes employees more efficient because they can find what they need more quickly than they would with Microsoft Live. Microsoft Service Credits for Search may have a certain short term effect, but the only way it's going to increase its market share in search is by delivering a better product. To put it bluntly, as blogger and former Microsoft employee Robert Scoble did, Microsoft needs to "Ship a better search a better advertising system than Google, a better hosting service than Amazon, a better cross-platform Web development ecosystem than Adobe, and get some services out there that are innovative (where's the video RSS reader? Blog search? Something like Yahoo's Pipes? A real blog service? A way to look up people?) That's how you win." Microsoft seems to have forgotten this a long time ago.
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