It was in late May when Microsoft first gave users financial incentive to browse the commercial Web with the company’s Live Search engine. They called the program Cashback. A month later, Microsoft expanded the Cashback system to include eBay Buy-it-Now offers. Now, according to Mary Jo-Foley of ZDNet, it is set to issue SearchPerks, which, in short, provides users product vouchers that, if collected in certain quantities, can offer participants options for free music or air travel, or, alternatively, the chance to make philanthropic contributions of various sorts.
It’s hard to make a thorough analysis of these steps taken by Microsoft over the last several months, as the search business is as slow to change as it is multifaceted in nature. Advertising is of course king and is what drives revenue for market competitors, but how “the others” - the one’s who aren’t Google - manage to attain greater market share and, in turn, substantially greater revenue, is something of a mystery. What do they do? Well, in Microsoft’s case, it’s paying for clicks. Which can be considered gimmicky, yes. On the other hand, if it helps... it helps.
A sensible person might say SearchPerks, as with the Cashback, only serves to devalue the company. Something of a last ditch attempt. Or attempts, plural. And that may well be true. But CEO Steve Ballmer, a man who, according to numerous comments made by technology and business columnist John C. Dvorak, subscribes exceedingly strongly to the so-called bean counter class of people working the situation room in Redmond, is one who introduced the last round of “giveaways.”