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Microsoft Live Search Now With SearchPerks
After the Yahoo deal fell through earlier this year, Microsoft began looking for other ways to improve its 3rd place presence in the search engine universe.
If you spend any time following the various Internet sites dedicated to finding good deals like I do, you know that Microsoft has been paying people to use Live Search for a while now.
That program was called Cashback and it basically worked like certain other shopping portals (Upromise.com comes to mind) in that you got a certain percentage back of any purchase you made from a site that you found via Live Search.
For example, I recently purchased some things from Sears costing $3.99 and $24.97 and have 16 cents and $1.00 respectively in my Cashback account.
The deal sites were agog in particular over the 35% percent cash back via eBay (now 30% cash back), complete with detailed instructions on how to temporarily disable your ad blocking software so that you could see the necessary banner ad to get the cash back. (Most popular item on the deal sites: Sony Playstation 3 – Probably not what Microsoft had in mind.)
As with any special offer, the purpose is to get people to try Live Search. Hopefully, they like it and keep coming back.
Internet research firm Hitwise recently said that although Cashback has become an increasing amount of the traffic that uses Live.com, the overall share of Live.com as a search engine has not changed.
SearchPerks Now in Mint Flavor!
The catch to the Cashback promotion was that you had to buy something in order to get anything out of it. This achieved two things.
First, the majority of search advertisers are looking to get people to buy something by advertising and thus, Microsoft provided the best kind of search engine traffic to its advertisers. Second, it kept people from performing bogus searches just for the purpose of getting something back.
The new SearchPerks promotion is different. It does not require you to buy anything. However, you won’t be getting cash back either.
Instead, SearchPerks is more of a research experiment. The new SearchPerks promotion also requires you to use Internet Explorer. The Cashback promotion works with other browsers so long as you use Live Search.
In order to get anything out of SearchPerks, you have to be willing to go the distance. There are no prizes or rewards to claim until the whole promotion ends on April 15, 2009.
How Does SearchPerks Work?
To start, you have to have a Windows Live ID (Microsoft hopes this will get you to sign up if you haven’t already, in which case they also hope you will try the various Windows Live services and start using them).
Then, you have to download the Perk Counter.
Then, when you search via Live.com, MSN.com or from Hotmail or Messenger, you get a ticket for each search. (What is this? Skeeball?)
Also, although you don’t have to have one to participate, if you want to redeem your Skeeball tickets for prizes, you have to sign up for a Live Search Club account.
The Perk Counter, Microsoft points out, tracks the number of tickets you earn. It also tracks "some online activity" like clicks on search ads, but supposedly not what you search for or what sites you visit (other than those you visit by clicking on ads, I guess).
It does record how many searches you do on Microsoft and other search engines. It also records what type of searches you do (news, images, blogs, etc) and the number of ads you click on anywhere, not just Microsoft sites.
It also collects your operating system type, your IP address, the version of IE you use, and information about any search toolbars you might have installed. Somehow it also collects information about your searches to deter fraud, but does not record what you actually search for.
And, just for good measure, "The Perk Counter may also detect various applications or software that you have installed that may be used in connection with the Perk Counter and the Promotion that may violate the Terms."
Microsoft hopes all of this data will enable it to better construct its search properties in a way that allows it to better compete with Google.
Is Joining SearchPerks Worth It?
Well, you earn 1 ticket per search plus 500 tickets for signing up. You can only earn up to 25 tickets per day.
A T-Shirt is 1100 tickets. So, you’ll need to do 25 searches per day for 24 days in order to get a T-Shirt (assuming you use your 500 tickets for the T-Shirt).
Your next prize, say, 1 Music Download, is 105 tickets so those are 5 days worth of 25 searches per day.
I guess it comes down to how much you like music. Of course, Microsoft says that they can add or remove prizes and change how many tickets each prize costs, so we’ll see how it shakes out in the end.
In the mean time, if you have been looking for a reason to check out Microsoft’s expanding array of offerings in the Live arena, this is as good a reason as any. In particular, take a look at Windows Live Spaces which allows a nice chunk of online storage for free.
Related Posts:
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- Search Results Get Safer
- Be More Productive With Microsoft Office Live Workspace
- Live Writer – Windows Live Tools Beta 3
- Microsoft Office Live & Office Web & Office Online, Oh My!
- Windows Live Goes Primetime
- Windows Vista Features that I Like, Part 2 – Windows Search
One Response to “Microsoft Live Search Now With SearchPerks”
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FreeStuffSearcher Says:
November 2nd, 2008 at 11:04 am
Personally, i’d recommend people to stick with Live Search Club. It allows you to get prizes faster than Search Perks and doing a little math, you won’t have enough points for the big prizes before the program closes.
–FreeStuffSearcher