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Yahoo Considers Offering Prizes to Search Users

Posted by Zonk on from the you-get-porn-and-free-music dept.

Bemmu writes "According to the San Francisco Chronicle: 'Yahoo Inc. is considering offering free music downloads, discounts on DVD rentals and frequent-flier miles to users who make the Web site their primary search engine.'" More from the article: "Offering rewards to search engine users isn't new. During the dot-com boom in the late 1990s, a number of companies including AllAdvantage.com and MyPoints.com gave cash, prizes and loyalty points to users, although many of the companies eventually went out of business or were sold at fire sale prices. That's not to say the model never works. One exception is iWon.com, a Web portal that offers cash prizes for using the site. After some success during the boom, iWon is now owned by Ask Jeeves and its parent company IAC/InterActiveCorp. " Update: 02/12 21:07 GMT by Z : Headline changed for accuracy.

5 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. iWon worked well for a brief period by bigtrike · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I found iWon to actually be useful and relevant for a brief period of time during the boom. Like just about every other portal and search which died off, they seemed to give in to greed and sell top placements, making it worthless.

    I would attribute the brief success of iWon to it functioning well, rather than the gimmicks.

    1. Re:iWon worked well for a brief period by generic-man · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Companies like Google and DoubleClick track you around their large advertising networks using fewer than 400 cookies. Doesn't make them any better, by the metric of "cookies == spyware" that you appear to have bought into. In fact, people seem to be tolerant of advertising as long as it keeps cool new products free.

      --
      For more information, click here.
  2. Frequent-users miles by biocute · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This got me thinking -- Maybe instead of offering prizes (which one needs to win), why not offer frequent-searcher credits?

    So if you searched while logged in (then Yahoo! doesn't even need forever-cookie to track a user's activity), you will accumulate some credits and when you have reached certain threshold, you can exchange for things that you actually want.

    --
    Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
  3. Not worth it by qzulla · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Yahoo's survey said that users who sign up for the rewards program would be required to do most of their searching with the company. The program may require users to register, so the company can track usage, or use a Yahoo rewards toolbar.

    Not worth it. Let them track someone else. Then the next time the subpoena wagon rolls through town they can hang them, not me.

    qz

  4. Firefox extensions.. by damneinstien · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If the search prize giving algorithm isn't too draconian, we might as well use an extension to search google and yahoo at the same time and use google's search while getting money from yahoo.