Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Hopes Prizes Will Attract New Searchers
BertieBaggio writes "Remember the long-running e-mail hoax that had Bill Gates testing an "e-mail tracing program" and offering to pay recipients big bucks if they passed his test e-mail along to all their friends? Well, the offer is true, sort of. Microsoft wants you to use its search engine, and it's got $1 million worth of prizes up for grabs for those who nibble at the offer. Following Yahoo's recent consideration of offering prizes to searchers, is this another tactic to lure users away from Google with candy and other shiny things?"
What is the quality of MSN's search engine like? Does it rival that of Google?
Indeed, Microsoft does have the resources to create a very powerful product, but that is often not what is done, as shown by many of their past products.
Then again, I'll use whatever search engine returns the best results, regardless of what prizes they might be offering searchers. The prizes would have to be pretty significant for me to want to put up with what may be lower-quality searches.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
What we need is another search engine that isn't under the control of any one group. I'm not sure how this would be possible though, but with how these companies have caved in with censorship, we need a search engine that can't be controlled in such a way, like the internet can not be controlled effectively.
I really have no idea how this could be achieved but having the search engines under the control of these corporations has proven bad for the interests of the public, well the Chinese public at the moment, but there is nothing that would make it very difficult for other governments to have their countries search results censored.
There is mozdex which seems to be an open-source (I think it uses java though, so I wouldn't really say it's free-software) search engine project. But it's probably again open to the same form of abuse, being under the control of one entity, I believe.
I really hope that Google doesn't jump on this bandwagon. I'd much rather see them invest any prize money towards making their system better. $1 million isn't much to a company like Google, but that's still enough to pay a number of developers and researchers for even a year's worth of development and innovation.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
The Microsoft mindset can be summed up in four words: You can buy anything.
It doesn't matter what it is you want; maybe you want to control a market, maybe you want to manufacture a quality video game console, maybe you want to create a public perception that you are a good company, maybe you want to be found innocent of breaking the law. For all problems, there is exactly one solution, and it always works: throw money at the problem. If this doesn't work, then increase the amount of money you throw.
Here we see the logical end conclusion of this kind of thinking. In this case, what Microsoft wants is users for its mediocre also-ran search engine. And the way they are attaining this is to simply buy some, by paying people to use their search engine.
I'm an understanding fellow.
I understand fanatic thought.
I attributed roughly 90% of all 'slashvertisement' accusations as such. Fanatics who can't understand that sometime, yeah, its a sales pitch AND information...and even the more delicate nature of balancing financial interest versus blatant soul-less advertisting versus keeping the site alive. (they gotta pay for my favorite blog/news site somehow)
I never really saw it like this before. I just did, and it breaks my heart a little.
The most blatant astroturfing I have ever seen on slashdot.
Could that article summary have been worded any more loaded? Sure, a vast majority of us realize what it is and wouldn't waste our time...but out of the tens and tens of thousands that are on here regularly (hundreds of thousands occasionally)....perhaps much more than that even..... but...if only 10% of all people click on that link and sign up, well....that's stil a metric shit-ton of people....and with language like that I'm surely being conservative.
Sorry for the rant, mod me off into oblivion.... I just.... had to tell somebody... ~Dan
Honestly, the search quality of Yahoo and MSN is likely on par with Google. But the perception of search quality clearly resides with Google. Credit their Marketing department.
And we know it takes a REALLY long time to get over the perception of inferior quality even when it's just a myth. Look at the US auto industry compared to the Japanese...
A study was done in the last year on the typical users of the major search engines. Google had the bulk of intelligent, young, and wealthy, Yahoo and Google split the average person, and MSN followed it up with mostly uneducated and low income. I suspect that some of Yahoo's will go to MSN for the prize, but Google's? Not likely. They are a bit brighter than that.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"I'm sorry but using prizes to get people to use your search engine means you obviously don't have the technology to lure people. When something can't become popular by word of mouth it probably isn't that great. When someone has to GIVE you something to use their service, then it must be pretty bad."
Actually, I am not too sure about that. Google is the market leader for search engines. My hdefault page is Google search and has been for years. If Microsoft has a better product, I wouldn't even know about it because I am satisfied with Google.
One thing about Microsoft, they know business. They know every clean and dirty trick in the book. This promotion is designed to get users using the search engine for a period of time. Getting them accustomed to it. This marketing campaign will only be effective if their product has some superior aspects to the Google search engine. I don't think Microsoft would be dumb enough to pull this if they had nothing to offer.
Word of mouth is not the most effective advertising method, and it is never sufficient to rapidly penetrate a market.
About 10 years, in the browser war, Mr Microsoft was giving stuff free to custeromes, to beat Netscape. 10 years later, the same Mr Microsoft is giving prize to customers, to beat Google. I cannot image what will happen 10 years from now. Will they give out stocks to customers?