Step right up! Chance to Win Prizes For Searching!
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Written By Reprise Media | February 14, 2006 | Share This
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Last week, it was Yahoo! mulling a program to reward loyal search customers with cash and prizes. Today, it’s MSN, and there’s no mulling about it; Search Engine Watch’s blog says they went ahead with msnsearchandwin.com, a limited-time promotion that offers users a chance to score swag instantly, just by landing the right keyword in an MSN search, then clicking on a link reading “MSN Search and win” within a “sponsored sites” box.
Microsoft’s press release reports that the promotion began yesterday and will run for three months, although the official rules (no purchase necessary!) state that the contest started Feb. 3rd - but who’s counting, right? Anyway, each month has a different list of 1200 pre-selected winning keywords that give users the chance to net prizes, which range from a 12.1″ Sony LCD TV to a $50 grand charitable donation to the usual assortment of magazine subscriptions and gift certificates.
This ploy might get people onto the MSN bandwagon in the short term, but is it going to get users to really switch for good? The ’search and win’ idea seems a tad 1999 to us - remember iwon.com? Search Engine Journal’s Loren Baker had to remind us. Baker lasers MSN’s gimmick:
“Incentivizing Internet users to use a search engine is a bit old school and 3rd tier, but MSN may convert a couple of Bingo Moms into lifetime users - boosting its usage even more among the Bingo Mom community.”
Whether MSN uses their sweepstakes to catch on (with bingo moms or anyone else) remains to be seen, but at least Microsoft might have the Chicago Transit Authority searching…for an alternative to Windows, unfortunately. Digg links to photos taken at a new Chicago subway station; information screens down there are apparently going haywire, displaying such Windows error messages as “Your computer might be at risk.” Uh, on second thought, maybe we’ll take a cab.
Update: It didn’t take long for folks to hack MSN’s winning keywords. Threadwatch noodled out 400 keywords using a script - and Oilman found all the winning keywords embedded in the site’s source code. Our guess is that MSN is going to change those words up a bit sooner than next month.
Topics: Search: News |
Straight from the hip,cut to the chase.