So a few months ago, I wrote this article about Yahoo and the need for them to branch out and start rewarding/incentivizing users to use their Search Engine.
The article was called “Yahoo should pay you to use it’s search engine” and the piece was on Seeking Alpha.
I was thinking about the fact that for some reason, Google competitors never seem to aggressively compete for web search eyeballs. Google are so far ahead, I figured it might be worthwhile for competitors to simply just offer us money to use them for search instead.
My theory was that for a company like Yahoo, it would financially make sense. Ironically, Microsoft seem to be headed (ever so discreetly) in this direction now.
They’ve introduced a new program called Bing Rewards and to me, it makes sense.
The premise is simple:
- Sign up for free
- Use the Search Engine for your searches
- Accumulate Points for searching
- Redeem those points for prizes
Some of the prizes are:
- A Lumia 1020 phone
- An Xbox One
- $500 Microsoft Store online gift card
Also you can get gift cards to:
- Burger King
- Starbucks
- Fandango
- Hulu Plus
- Xbox Music
- Applebees
- Expedia
- Skype
and a lot more…
You can see more of the prizes and sponsors here.
It’s a really interesting new strategy by Microsoft to try and generate some attention with Bing and best of all for you, it’s FREE.
Check out the Bing promotion here and let us know what you think about it.
Do you think it will help Microsoft effectively compete against Google?
Use the comments below
All Comments
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm tempting 😛
Too bad. Only for US residents.
Sad, only for US apparently. I already use Bing so it would have been perfect for me.
“Points” for using a search engine!
What will Microsoft do next, take hostages?
Use Bing or we’ll get you…and you’re little dog, too.
I’ll try it out