Think hard: when was the last time you used Microsoft's Live Search? With Google ever increasing its share of the world search market - comScore stats saw its US stake in search grow to 63 per cent in August - previous heavyweights, like Microsoft and Yahoo!, are forever dwindling in the minds of many internet users.Microsoft is on a quest to change that - by offering its users hard cold cash to use Live Search. The new scheme, entitled SearchPerks, will award people points for using the search engine; these can later be redeemed for prizes.
Essentially, each user who agrees to use SearchPerks, will be give one "ticket" for each Live Search query made, to a maximum of 25 per day. From April 16th next year, users can cash in these points to either receive prizes or donate to charity. Prizes that can be earned include ringtones (one for 105 points), music downloads (five for 525 tickets), airline miles (1000 miles for 1800 points) and an xBox wireless controller (one for 5500 tickets).
What's more, it's simple to sign up for SearchPerks. Users will need to register and download a small piece of code that acts as a Perk Counter on your desktop. However, registration is only offered from today (October 1) to December 31 and the scheme will be capped at 250, 000 participants.
There are further hindrances too: currently, it only runs on Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher, on a Windows PC. But, according to CNET, these restrictions may be altered in the future. A Microsoft spokesperson said:
"At this time, SearchPerks is a limited promotion, though we remain open to expending availability of the promotion to different browsers and operating systems based on consumer interest."
This isn't the first time that Microsoft has attempted to pay users to utilise its search engine. In May this year, it launched its Live Search Cashback scheme. Through this programme, users will receive cash payments each time a product is purchased through specialist Microsoft shopping verticals. Despite scepticism, this plan hasn't been without success; in July, a comScore report displayed evidence of a 15 per cent gain in US search volume for Microsoft following the launch.
But can paying people to search really be a viable long term option for the Redmond-based firm? SearchPerks is certainly targeted at a broader audience than Live Search Cashback; and if the latter showed evidence of improvement, SearchPerks could be destined to have a similar - if not higher - success rate.
Nevertheless, SearchPerks seems unlikely to pull in a significant number of new devotees to Microsoft, though dedicated Live Search users may make more searches per day in an effort to claim a coveted prize come April. In order to see a permanent rise in its user base - and an encouraging shift in its market share - Microsoft will need to plough greater resources into enhancing its search offering to steal users away from what seems like Google's ever growing legion of fans.
