Microsoft: Pay Me to Use Your Search Engine
I just read an interesting interview of Bill Gates on Computing.co.uk. Gates says the way to win customers is to pay consumers for searching. He goes on to say that Microsoft is planning to experiement with that concept in the next year.
It will be interesting to see what kind of scheme they come up with to pay consumers without a huge amount of fraud. If you thought click fraud is bad now, wait until the search engines start paying every Tom, Dick and Harry for searches. If left unchecked it could potentially destroy the CPC business model.
There have been search engines that sort of paid users for searching with them. Remember iwon.com? They got a huge following when they first launched, especially when they were giving away ludicrous amounts of cash prizes. I never won anything, though, so I quit using their search engine. I'm sure tons of people were gaming their system to get more "points". Can you imagine what it would be like if everyone were getting paid just to search? The problem is that people will search for all kinds of crap just to get money. So as search marketers, we pay for a lot more junk traffic--that's beside the outright click fraud, automated clicks, etc.
I'm sure the search engines have considered these issues, that's why they're not currently paying users to search. (not that it hasn't been tried before). Although I have serious reservations about the idea of paying users to search, if anyone can pull it off, it could be Microsoft. Why? First of all, they've got plenty of money to dole out. Second, they have the distinct advantage of providing the operating system to 99.999% of all the computers out there. Because of their market position, MS can do things their competitors can't in terms of requiring user registrations and so forth.
When Windows Live was announced the other day, it didn't seem to create much of a stir, but the thing that stands out to me about Windows/Office Live is that it is a platform "in which software and online services and applications work together, portions paid for by advertising and subscription revenue". Hmmm...sounds a lot like compensating people to use your search engine and view your ads.
It's still early, but Microsoft might be onto something here. Only time will tell how this concept is accepted in the marketplace, but I am personally very excited to see some serious competition among the top search engines. I think it's good for the search engine industry and all of us who make a living doing the search thing.
It will be interesting to see what kind of scheme they come up with to pay consumers without a huge amount of fraud. If you thought click fraud is bad now, wait until the search engines start paying every Tom, Dick and Harry for searches. If left unchecked it could potentially destroy the CPC business model.
There have been search engines that sort of paid users for searching with them. Remember iwon.com? They got a huge following when they first launched, especially when they were giving away ludicrous amounts of cash prizes. I never won anything, though, so I quit using their search engine. I'm sure tons of people were gaming their system to get more "points". Can you imagine what it would be like if everyone were getting paid just to search? The problem is that people will search for all kinds of crap just to get money. So as search marketers, we pay for a lot more junk traffic--that's beside the outright click fraud, automated clicks, etc.
I'm sure the search engines have considered these issues, that's why they're not currently paying users to search. (not that it hasn't been tried before). Although I have serious reservations about the idea of paying users to search, if anyone can pull it off, it could be Microsoft. Why? First of all, they've got plenty of money to dole out. Second, they have the distinct advantage of providing the operating system to 99.999% of all the computers out there. Because of their market position, MS can do things their competitors can't in terms of requiring user registrations and so forth.
When Windows Live was announced the other day, it didn't seem to create much of a stir, but the thing that stands out to me about Windows/Office Live is that it is a platform "in which software and online services and applications work together, portions paid for by advertising and subscription revenue". Hmmm...sounds a lot like compensating people to use your search engine and view your ads.
It's still early, but Microsoft might be onto something here. Only time will tell how this concept is accepted in the marketplace, but I am personally very excited to see some serious competition among the top search engines. I think it's good for the search engine industry and all of us who make a living doing the search thing.
posted by Dave @ 1:43 PM
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