Microsoft Once Again Mulling Payments To Searchers
from the paid-search dept
Just over a year ago there was some discussion that Microsoft might start paying people to use its search engine, as a way of luring users away from Google. The company never implemented the plan and its share of the search market continues to languish. Now it's apparently revisiting the idea of paying people to search, although with a slight twist. John Battelle has obtained internal company documents suggesting that the company will give businesses free deployment and training services if they encourage their workers to use Microsoft Live search. Many companies write a hefty check to Microsoft each year, and the company is clearly hoping that they'll gladly switch search engines if it means getting a discount on Microsoft products. It's not exactly clear how companies will do this; presumably, they'd set up home pages and and search boxes to default to Live. But even if some companies opt to do this, it's hard see this move having a major impact on Microsoft's share of the market. If Live isn't deemed to be on par with Google, then employees will keep using Google, regardless of what the defaults are -- they'll just have to deal with the annoyance of an unnecessary hurdle. Ultimately, Microsoft needs innovation in the search space, not gimmicks and bribes, to make itself competitive in this market.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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I hear lawyers saying that Microsoft is using
Success breeds contempt.
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branding
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Re: branding
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Re: Re: branding
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Re: Re: Re: branding
1. type information in box
2. click something
these people get phished when they get emails inviting them to do 1. and 2. because they dont understand where or when to do it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: branding
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THE SOLUTION!
=P
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Another Futile Attempt
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sigh
Sadly, techdirt hit the nail on the head - making an actually good sesarch is the solution not tricks to get people to use your existing one.
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Here we go again....
Instead of coming out with a product that has features and uses that actually DRAW customers from their competitors, now Microsoft wants to BRIBE you away.
This isn't really all that shocking, considering that MICROSOFT is the one doing it, but it just goes to prove my point, that companies, will do EVERYTHING short of coming out with a BETTER PRODUCT, to steal away customers from their competitors.
What is so upsetting about this is that it seems this type of thought process has infiltrated just about every single company's decision making process. Whether they SUE, CALL NAMES, or now BRIBE, companies are spending their energies to convince customers that their product, and usually INFERIOR, is better then the one they are using. This is really a slippery slope, as companies seem to have lost the ability to innovate to win customers, and now just put out crap and then revert to name-calling, bribing, or suing, to win customers. Think of what this will give us, the consumers, 10 years down the road! Instead of innovation, we'll get crappy products with companies yelling at each other about who's is less crappier then the others.
I really pity the generation coming after me, with all the technology and intelligence we are investing in our children, intead of teaching them to use those things to make a better product or be a better person, they will instead be told that, "it's useless to innovate. Instead, just yell real loud about how our competitor's product sucks".
Bob
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Re: Here we go again....
Hey Microsoft! As long as you give me free OS upgrades to your Ultimate packages (like Vista Ultimate) I will not only use your search engine, but recommend it AND wear promotional advertising in the form of clothing. :)
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I switched from Google to Live
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google v. microsoft
Let's face it... If it really all boiled down to using the best product available, nobody would be using Windows.
Maybe Microsoft could call their search engine "Suck"... then if we wanted to search for something, no longer would we have to "google it"... we could all just "Suck it".
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All I got to say is.....
Maybe they can tie it in with WWE and Degeneration X. You could have Triple H and Shawn Michaels on your TV saying, "We got just 2 words for ya... SUCK IT!" Then cut to your mom hunched over....a computer screen, then she looks up and says, "I sucked it!". . .
I think I'll go Google NCAA basketball scores now...
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Live vs. Google
Microsoft still has a long way to go in its' quest for search engine relevancy.
This comes from a bit of a Microsoft fanboy. So my experience should be biased towards M$. As my perseption is that Google is better, it probaly is.
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