Microsoft's Offers Users Prizes for Using Live Search

Microsoft is up to its old tricks to try and garner itself a bigger a share of the search market. The company has announced a new system called SearchPerks, which allows customer to earn tickets which they can then exchange for prizes.

SearchPerks is another way in which Microsoft is trying to bribe, er, encourage users to use its Microsoft Live Search search engine. Sitting pretty in a comfy third place after Google and Yahoo ! is not where the Redmond company wants to be and over the years they’ve tried a couple of tactics to lure users away from competitors.

In May the company announced it would pay users to use Live Search to shop online. Alright, so technically it’s a cashback savings deal with participating retailers but the idea is the same. If you search for a product on Live Search and it happens to be one of the 10 million products from over 700 sellers (including eBay, Barnes & Noble.com, Overstock.com, Sears, Zappos.com, and WPP) you receive a couple of cents off your purchase. Once that number builds itself up to $5 dollars you can cash it in.

SearchPerks is sort of similar. Users install a counter which then calculates how many times they use Live Search and awards “tickets” for each search conducted per day. The offer is running through until April and prizes actually seem pretty decent with video games and Air Miles on offer. While this is clearly another ploy to poach users, it’s probably going to work, at least for some people even if it is only open to U.S. users.