Microsoft`s Search Bribery: a Brief Overview - The Newest Perks
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Before I tell you about Microsoft's latest search bribery, called Search Perks, I want to tell you about another program the company has been running for nearly a year that seems to be very similar. It involves something called Live Search Club. You need a Windows Live ID to log in and use the site. It features a variety of casual, puzzle-based games.
Here's the lure: these games trigger searches on Live Search. The better you do on the game, the more points you earn (the number of searches you trigger and how well you do are not directly connected). The more points you earn, the more prizes you can earn. Prizes include things like airline miles, hardware, software, and more.
One of my friends, who retired from IBM just a couple of years ago, has earned around 60,000 airlines miles this way. Above you'll see a screen shot of the site - and you'll notice on the right hand side an ad for something called Search Perks. You can use it to earn even more points that can be redeemed for prizes, but you don't have to use Live Search Club to earn points anymore; you can earn them directly through Search Perks.
Here's how Search Perks works: you sign in with your Windows Live ID, and then you download a "Perk Counter" (it only works in IE, naturally). You get 500 bonus tickets just for downloading the counter. Then, whenever you use Live Search or perform a search on Windows Live properties - up to 25 per day - you earn tickets that you can redeem for prizes. You need to download the Perk Counter before December 31, 2008, and you need to redeem any tickets you earn by April 15, 2009.
So what can you win? Prizes include airline miles (no surprise), cookbooks, music downloads, video games, clothing...but also electronic gear like an Xbox controller or an Intellimouse Explorer. Whether anyone can ever get enough points to earn some of the better stuff remains to be seen.
It also remains to be seen whether this strategy of effectively paying people for their loyalty to a particular search engine will actually work for Microsoft. Loyalty programs do have a long history of success in swaying the uncertain, or those who don't think there is a significant difference between competitors in a field (I could tell you stories about licking green stamps!). Larry Dignan, writing for ZDNet, noted that Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster found that 22 percent of web surfers don't know why they're using the particular search engine they favor - and of those, more than 60 percent use Google. Munster's survey included less than 400 users, but it is still tantalizing. Microsoft apparently thinks its programs will win these Google users over. I'll believe that when I see it.
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