Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Microsoft Hopes Prizes Will Attract New Searchers 195

Posted by CowboyNeal from the scratch-and-win dept.
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?"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Microsoft Hopes Prizes Will Attract New Searchers More

Microsoft Hopes Prizes Will Attract New Searchers

Comments Filter:

  • Not gonna get me again (Score:4, Funny)

    by MyLongNickName ( 822545 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @10:07PM (#14738964) Journal
    I ain't falling for this again. I've sent in about 20 of those damn e-mails and haven't got a thing from Bill.

    You can fool me once, twice, heck.... even 20 times. But twenty-one? Heck no! I'm not as dumb as I look (and my mommy tells me I look pretty dumb).

    Now, I have to get back to my e-mail and find out what funny, amazing thing will happen when I forward this e-mail to 18 of my closest friends... I only have 5 minutes to do it.

    • Re:Not gonna get me again (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Hey, could you forward that to me?

      Man, what a sweet deal. What, with the Nigerian bank deal I'm working on, the AOL giveaway, and now this, I'm going to clean up.

    • Re:Not gonna get me again (Score:5, Funny)

      by toddbu ( 748790 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @10:21PM (#14739046)
      I've sent in about 20 of those damn e-mails and haven't got a thing from Bill.

      I did. All I had to do was send a check for $199.95 for shipping/handling and I got a free copy of Windows XP.

  • iTunes Contest (Score:3, Funny)

    by JFlex ( 763276 ) * on Thursday February 16, 2006 @10:08PM (#14738970)
    Apple is doing something similar with the iTunes Music Store Billion Song Countdown [apple.com], and I don't think they giving away prizes to try and lure users away from Napster.

  • What is the quality of MSN's search like? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CyricZ ( 887944 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @10:09PM (#14738975)
    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.

    • Re:What is the quality of MSN's search like? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by spinfire ( 148920 ) <dpn@isomerica.net> on Thursday February 16, 2006 @10:20PM (#14739043) Homepage
      It does indeed, however generally I search Google first and if it fails me I'll try MSN, Teoma, Alltheweb, etc. In my observation, Google tends to be manipulated by malicious SEO more readily, but I think this may be due to the fact that they are such a huge, juicy target for SEO firms. The smaller, less popular engines are less likely to be targetted specifically by SEO, though generic SEO techniques still affect them.

      In general, the freshness of MSN's index rivals that of Google. I think both of them tend to feature new sites more prominently, but I'm not sure exactly how much of this is my imagination.

      Most major search engines offer a very clean interface these days as well, and MSN is no exception. However, MSN isn't advertising anywhere near as aggressively as Google is.
    • What is the quality of MSN's search engine like? Does it rival that of Google?

      Would Microsoft need to waste 1 millon of dollars if the msn search engine was good?

      If you have to pay users to use your product, then your prodcut is crap.

    • Have you tried typing "MSN search quality" into Google?

      (I did, the results were so relevant that they ruin the joke)
      • I just tried that and the google results are shockingly bad, and I'm assuming that is your point.

        Then I searched the same thing through MSN and the results are worse, which I didn't think to be possible.
      • Have you tried typing "MSN search quality" into Google?

        That is interesting. I also tried it with msgsearchandwin.com, and the differences are instructive.

        With google, you get a list of a lot of search sites, especially the meta-search sites. With msnsearchandwin, you get mostly ads for msn's search.

        I know which I find more credible and trustworthy. I wonder how many people would trust a search site that responds to such queries by telling you about itself.

    • Re:What is the quality of MSN's search like? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      MSN search is doing much better nowadays. When I'm really researching stuff, I tend to search both Google and MSN and compare the results. Although Google remains my primary search choice, I am finding myself using MSN more and more.

      As a general rule of thumb, the top search result on MSN normally sucks, which tends to give you the immediate impression that the search engine is lacking, but if you look past that, it gets better quick. To my experience, MSN Search will normally contain the responses of th

    • Too add to your question, does it have cache?

      *runs off to MSN.com*

      Okay. It does. So there goes my one HUGE excuse for only using Google. Does it have the Blog problem, though?

      *quickly wipes cookies and history so no one can see I went to MSN.com*
    • I am currently sueing a lady who owns a company with no phone number, no website and no way of finding anything out about the company (almost) (as you can tell, the company is used for illegal activities and scamming people).

      MSN Search for the company....0 results
      Yahoo! Search for the company....0 results
      Google Search for the company....old records of permits which show me some of the properties this company, and this lady own. Now I can put liens on these properties if I win.

      Another Search Engine is going

  • Have you heard about Microsoft's search engine? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16, 2006 @10:09PM (#14738978)
    It's so useful they have to pay you to use it.
  • Damn... Just when I expected another dirty trick from Microsoft...
    • Google should turn around and offer $10 million in prizes for using Google.com to search ;-)

    • Re:Damn... (Score:3, Informative)

      by psergiu ( 67614 )
      It IS a dirty trick:

      Quote from the Official Rules:

      6) ELIGIBILITY: This Promotion is open only to legal residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia, 18 years of age or older at the time of entry.

      The prizes will be received only by Fat Old Americans - who - as anyone knows - cannot properly use a computer.

  • Another search engine is needed. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16, 2006 @10:11PM (#14738991)
    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.
    • A lot of pages we visit are pages we already visited in the past, a partial solution would be a Firefox extension that makes you own search engine while you browse.

    • The problem is (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The problem is you actually do want control of the search engine by one group. The reason for this is that search engines are not about finding a source for information. Search engines are about finding an authoritative source for information. If you just want sites about "skiing", well, there are thirty thousand of those. When you search, you want to pick the ten most important. Which are those? Well, we don't want our search under the control of any one group, so let's solve this democratically. What grou

  • Let's hope Google doesn't resort to this. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CyricZ ( 887944 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @10:12PM (#14738994)
    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.

  • If you have to pay people to use your free service, you have a problem.

    Remember FreePC?

    • If you have to pay people to use your free service, you have a problem.

      Microsoft isn't doing this for the direct revenue it generates. They're doing it to get more eyeballs on their other web properties. They're also doing it to help maintain their position as an industry leader. Back in the good old days of the dotcom era, we used to call this "mindshare". Microsoft has lost much mindshare of late, and if they don't stop the bleeding then they'll become completely irrelevant.

    • Is it really that much different than offering a discount on your pay-based service? Some could say that if you can't charge full price for your service, then you have a problem.

  • Oh ya! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Camel Pilot ( 78781 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @10:13PM (#14739006) Homepage Journal
    No details on how this works but can turn loose a perl/lwp script and let it run all night and wake up a winner! Something tells me they have thought of this angle.

    • Re:Oh ya! (Score:3, Informative)

      by CyricZ ( 887944 )
      Existing search engines that have a similar scheme only allow you to win on your first ten searches per day, or something along those lines, in order to prevent automated searching abuses.

      • Existing search engines that have a similar scheme only allow you to win on your first ten searches per day, or something along those lines, in order to prevent automated searching abuses.

        Well, they *could* use IP-based blocking of more than ten tries a day.

        In unrelated news, MIT has the entire 18.0.0.0/8 class A subnet...
    • it's a flash app, good luck trying to automate that with perl/lwp.

    • Did you read the instructions? :-/

      You have to search for a keyword on the list of keywords (eg, "xbox 360"). One of the links (in the "sponsored links" section) will be "Click here to see if you won!".

      example click-here link [msn.com].

      That takes you to the same flash page, but with a slightly different URL [msnsearchandwin.com], and tells you that you didn't win.

      (not sure what it looks like when you do win :-/ )

      So maybe you could experiment with the latter url. At any rate, you're not going to get anything out of the flash source

    • Yes, I thought that they thought that I might think of that.

      So I have a roomfull of Chinese clicking away as we speak.

  • Search engines searching search engines (Score:3)

    by bobthemuse ( 574400 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @10:14PM (#14739009)
    Does google deliberately ignore links to other search engines?

    It would be a riot to find a 'winning search' somewhere in Google's cached pages.....
  • What is the minimum amount of money, or the minimum prize, that you would have to receive in order to use a search engine that may return suboptimal results?

    For me, I don't know if any prize that is likely to be offered would be worth putting up with less than ideal search results.

  • You know you product sucks when... (Score:5, Funny)

    by penguinboy ( 35085 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @10:15PM (#14739015)
    you have to bribe people to use it instead of the competition.
    • Well, it's either your product sucks or the marketing of your product sucks.

      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...

  • Give-aways (Score:1, Redundant)

    by garrett714 ( 841216 )
    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.

    • Re:Give-aways (Score:3, Insightful)

      by CB-in-Tokyo ( 692617 )
      "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

  • In other words, they're buying customers. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16, 2006 @10:20PM (#14739041)
    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.
    • 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.

      Alright, but this is certainly not a new phenomenon. In fact, this type of solution has been around for as long as there has been a monetary system. For example, the Roman Senator and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero in his argument against the Gaius Verres in 70 BC decried the corruption of the Roman Senatorial Courts and the general feeling amo

  • Plato's Cave... (Score:5, Funny)

    by PipeIsArt ( 800028 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @10:20PM (#14739044) Homepage
    Google isn't the only search engine?!?!?
  • I honestly wonder if the million in prizes makes up for the extra time collectively people spend trying to find the information they need instead of Googling it in the first place?

  • Sigh...I guess it's true. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Daneurysm ( 732825 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @10:22PM (#14739064)
    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
    • Er, the article summary was basically copied from the MSNBC article linked to. Maybe it's a sales pitch from MSNBC but it's not one from slashdot. Chalk this up to the slashdot editors' usual laziness.
    • Dan, your aneurysm has gotten the best of you.

      if only 10% of all people click on that link and sign up, well....that's still a metric shit-ton of people....and with language like that I'm surely being conservative.

      Did you ever consider the fact that paying people to use your search engine is pathetic, and that's newsworthy? The only proof is to look at the promise. We can be sure Bill has pulled the usual retail price inflation to get the price up to one million dollars, but the idea is still the sam

  • I had a go (Score:4, Funny)

    by dilby ( 725275 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @10:23PM (#14739070) Journal
    But I didn't win [msn.com] :(
  • I wonder if Microsoft will make or offically endorse a Firefox search add-on or toolbar for this special promotional version of the MSN search site? They might actually get some additional search traffic from Firefox users if they promoted one, since most Firefox users use the search box when they're looking for something. I usually leave my search box on the Google default, but I also added the A9 one recently to get that 1.57% amazon.com discount.

    In short, Microsoft should offer more 3rd party browser sup
  • While not result = "Congratulations!" and x Dictionary.SumOfEntries
    Submit(Dictionary.Entry.X)
    X=X+1
    End While
  • Is this that kind of games child play that have good and bad prizes. If it is I think a few people already got prizes from Microsoft [freepress.net] and Yahoo [csmonitor.com].

    On the "good prizes" side, Google gave China a better firewall [breitbart.com].

  • Not likely to change things (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @10:33PM (#14739130) Journal
    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.
    • Which probably means people who've bought a PC because they heard it would be good for their kids, but have no idea how to use it, and still have their homepage set to MSN.

      As an aside, this is why I'd always make sure that a website worked with Safari and Firefox. Whilst they are small percentages, they are predominantly people who are younger, wealthier or more tech aware, which generally means more disposable income..

  • No one would use it if there wasn't some kind of shiny, sparkly prize involved. Why would they when there's Google?

  • The art of innovation (Score:3, Informative)

    by sl4shd0rk ( 755837 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @10:44PM (#14739179)
    Baldy: (grumbling about killing google - off camera)
    Bill : Steve, we need a new innovation.
    Baldy: (grumbles about google search.. and killing it)
    Bill : That's a great idea, we need a search engine! Like .. uh .. Google's
    Baldy: (erupting in a maniacal tantrum) I'll fucking kill Google! (throws chair)
    Bill : I guess this has already been done... hey wait a minute. Google isn't *paying* anyone to use their search engine!! We can pay people to use our search engine!! What do you think Steve?
    Baldy: (chewing on shoelaces, mumbling)
    Bill : I think it's a splendid Idea! Release the prize hounds immediately!
  • reminds me of what Iwon [wikipedia.org] was doing a few years ago. And it didn't work for them, so my guess is that this won't work for MSN.

    On another note, the few times I used MSN search I found in some cases that it found what sites I was looking for within the first few pages where google was endlessly going through forum entries. I still don't like it over google but it does seem like it's getting better over time.
    • Iwon is still alive and kicking. Just waiting for somebody to buy them up. I don't use MSN search, but I've noticed that most of the people that reach my blog from a search engine are coming from MSN. Them seem to index even little ol' me very quickly.
  • OK, I've exaggerated a little bit since this isn't a Google-sponsored thing, but Blingo [blingo.com] provides prizes for using them as your search engine (and the search engine is of course run through Google).

    Now if you'll excuse me, I've just gotten the facts [microsoft.com] and need to convert my server that I've been running on Linux the past year or so for absolutely nothing to Windows Server 2003, since it's less expensive in the long run ;-)

  • A9 already does this (Score:3, Informative)

    by AuMatar ( 183847 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @11:16PM (#14739338)
    You get a Pi/2 (1.57%) discount at Amazon.com if you use the A9 search engine. No competition, everyone who uses it regularly gets it.
  • >> it's got $1 million worth of prizes up for grabs for those who nibble at the offer.

    That's the good news.

    The bad news is that it's all Windows ME licenses.
  • What's the big deal? Simpy [simpy.com] has been giving away AdSense cash [simpy.com] for a while now. Mike Arrington covered the topic on TechCrunch [techcrunch.com] the other day.
  • ...and... well, you know... And see what they get.

  • Yes (Score:2)

    by Infonaut ( 96956 )

    ...is this another tactic to lure users away from Google with candy and other shiny things?

    MS knows traditional shrink-wrap software marketing better than anyone. It seems they realize this search engine stuff is a new ballgame, but they haven't quite figured out that emulating cheezy operators like iWon isn't the way to go. If I want to get pimped, I'll go down to Quickie Mart and play Lotto.

  • You can already get prizes for Google searching through Blingo.com - and not only do you get a prize randomly, anyone who signs up as your friend gets the same prize you win (and vice versa). That's all there is to it, they don't even ask for anything beyond name, email and zip code when you sign up. Click my homepage link to join as my friend so we can win prizes together.

  • Try any of their KB searches. (Score:3, Informative)

    by badfrog ( 45310 ) on Friday February 17, 2006 @12:16AM (#14739596)
    Any IT people try to search their knowledge base? Of course you have. Which means you probably know it's easier most of the time to type any error message in on Google, which usually finds the correct KB article.

    Then again, hopefully their KB doesn't use the same engine as MSN.

  • and it's got $1 million worth of prizes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by NullProg ( 70833 ) on Friday February 17, 2006 @12:31AM (#14739677) Homepage Journal
    Dear Bill,

    I'd rather have my money back from my one purchase of Windows 95 for $80. I'd also like back my $300 purchase of Windows NT4. Microsoft owes me $160 on the two Windows 98 CDs I purchased, along with the $84 dollar Windows 98SE I bought which wiped out my OS/2 partition. I do have Windows 2000 PRO which I bought online for $120. Its OK for development, but it sucks at playing games.

    I bought for $40, Windows 3.0. I have two original copies (twelve+ disks each) of Windows 3.11 at $45 apiece. When I had an ARCNET network here at home, I spent another $45 on Windows for Workgroups. I also own, all the original MS DOS floppys from 3.3 which I purchased legally (but I can't remember the price).

    I spent $300 dollars on my copy of Office 6, and purchased the Office95 upgrade for $100. Now its worthless because you have changed the office formats.

    Bill, Im not buying XP/Vista because I shouldn't have to ask your permission to install software I buy off the store shelf.

    I'd like my money back. Stop giving prizes and give us what we paid for.

    Enjoy,
  • Slashdotted!!

    Unable to connect
    Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at clk.atdmt.com.
    * The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments.
    * If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network connection.
    * If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

    Ok, I was dubious about this, but at least I said "What the heck, let's give it a try, see how good the search
  • I dont know what the big deal is. I win stuff while browsing the web all the time! IPods, ring tones, xbox 360's. Often to claim the prize I will need to guess my favorite color (which I never get wrong) or verify that the following box is indeed flashing (which it has always been). I am also frequently the millionth viewer of a webpage, making my time spent online even more lucrative. You're probably astounded by my good luck and find it hard to believe, but it's true!
  • I sure do remember that email. At one point I was receiving about 5-10 of them a day from people I knew. So I got fed up with it and proceeded to do something about it.

    First I pulled out all the email addresses from all the copies I had saved (don't you just love it when people forward you stuff with headers nested 30 levels deep?) In total I had thousands of addresses to blind carbon copy. Then I sat down and started to write.

    First, I explained the purpose of IVAP (the international virus awareness pro
    • Actually, I did find this one email that I did keep around. It came to me a few months after the "virus". I've edited it to protect the guilty and to get around slashdot's junk filter.

      Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.93.980204183836.17411A-100000@hamlet.u ncg.edu>
      Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 22:35:21 EST
      From: <snip> <snip@VM.SC.EDU>
      Subject: Re: [Fwd: [Fwd: Fw: MICROSOFT WIN98&$1000!!!!! PLEASE READ!
  • 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?

  • When IE 4 came out, there was a Midnight Madness promotion where you'd get a free t-shirt if you were one of the first million(?) people who downloaded IE 4. I fell for that and never heard anything. Fast forward to 2005 and Opera has a similar promotion where the CEO will swim the Atlantic. I fell for that.

    Fool me thrice? Don't think so. It's a gimmick that may have some people give MSN a shot, but the bottom line is always gonna lie w/ the user experience. Are they finding what they're looking for

  • "Man wins $1 million for searching MSN for goatse."
  • They're nice Bots, they're willing to donate all their winnings to me.
  • 1. Don't put anything but the search box and a few important navigation links on the search page.

    2. Make it lightweight so it loads in less than a second.

    3. Save the ads and promos and articles and come-ons for the search results page.

    Google, AskJeeves and some other sites know what they're doing by having a sparse home page.

    MSN's home page is an elaborate news/sports/stocks portal. The visitor feels like he is the tool being used, rather than the other way around. Yahoo isn't much better.

Slashdot Top Deals

Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. -- Steinbach

Close