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Microsoft Will Try Anything!
By Gary Thomas | May 22, 2007
In a recent article written by Terri Wells - Microsoft Still Needs Help Understanding Search- she points how MSN is falling behind in the Search Market. I think it is the approach Microsoft tries and facilitates drives searchers away. Additionally, some people just don’t like using Microsoft products. The nice thing about MSN? You’re able to get solid rankings quickly. The not so nice thing? The consistency of results on MSN can be very poor.
When a company resorts to bribery not once, but twice in an effort to get customers to try their product, you have to consider that maybe there’s something wrong with the product itself.
Can we say Windows ME?” From a search visitor stand point, the traffic just isn’t there. Getting rankings can be easy, but what’s the point of focusing on pleasing a search engine on which so few are searching.
If the company promotes use of Microsoft Live Search, it can earn anywhere from $2 to $10 a user annually, depending on how much Microsoft’s search engine is used.
So how does Microsoft know you’re really with the program? Every computer at an enterprise participating in the program will have IE7 installed with a “Browser Helper Object.”
Microsoft is trying to control the market once again. We know they have money and are willing to spend it. It kind of gives you the “Big Brother is watching you” mentality. All we want from a search perspective is their search engine to be more efficient.
Apparently Microsoft can’t pull this off with just the web surfers who choose to use its search engine. There are a number of modern applications that “learn” how to be more relevant the more they’re used; consider Amazon’s “those who bought X book also bought Y” feature, or how it suggests new items of interest to you when you log in based on what you have searched for and/or purchased before. The more you use it, the better it gets.
Could this be why my client keeps appearing then disappearing in MSN? I’ve seen this time and time again. MSN keeps trying to improve their search engine only to make it worse. It can be very frustrating as a user.
Internet search doesn’t cost the searcher anything whether they’re searching on Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live, Ask, Searchles, or any of hundreds of search engines. But Lederman notes that “there’s no reward going directly to the individual carrying out the search.” In other words, the business as a whole might have an incentive to earn money from Microsoft, but the employees within the business will look at it, think “What’s in it for me?” and not see any point to using Microsoft Live rather than Google.
You will only make things worse if you take always some ones freedom to choose. You will only make them not want to use your product at all. This is why I think Google is so successful. Microsoft: you only drive the Penguin closer when you set restrictions.
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