Microsoft Hopes To Win The Real Prize By Offering Redeemable Points For Trying Live Search

In the uphill effort to dent Google’s (NSDQ: GOOG) dominance over online search, some challengers, like Ask.com, have tried to raise awareness by spending heavily on ads. Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) layers on a different approach: try Live Search and you just might win a prize.

It’s the latest variation of a theme Microsoft has been playing for months, beginning with an effort last March to lure enterprise users to its Live Search service. This time, Marketwatch reports, Microsoft is telling its Hotmail users that by trying the “Live Search Trial Program,” they can earn tickets that can be redeemed for prizes such as t-shirts and video games. It’s an expansion of a consumer-oriented summer promotion that followed the successful enterprise effort. This time, enrollment is limited to 4,000 users; the promotion is slated to run through February.

Microsoft’s Live Search lags the search offerings by Google, which had 54 percent of the search market in September, and Yahoo, (NSDQ: YHOO) with 19.5 percent share for that same month. Microsoft’s share of the market in September was 12 percent, according to Nielsen Online. That’s a drop from the gains during summer promotion, when Microsoft boosted Live Search use by 77 percent to 13.3 percent of the market.

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