According to an article in WebProNews title Use MSN, Gates May Write You A Check, Microsoft is planning is planning to test a number of ways to compensate search users to use MSN.
Gates claims that Google is generating about $50 a year per user. He suggested that free content or perhaps even cash could be used to entice users to the MSN camp and away from Google. A very interesting strategy and one worth tracking.
Expect to see competitors get agressive here, especially those with stored value payment systems in place (e.g, eBay/PayPal or Amazon/A9) and heavy content sites (e.g., Yahoo!).
About the Author
Michael Taus is the Managing Director of Magnolia Ventures a technology incubator and venture business consultancy, and Aquo Interactive, a software development and Internet marketing firm . He has been involved in the growth and development of network-related technology companies since 1996, including Rent.com (acquired by eBay) and BigLinx, a proprietary search engine marketing service. He currently is an advisor to a number of early-stage technology companies.
Reprint Permissions
You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as you leave the article title, author name, body and resource box in tact (that means NO changes) with the links made active and you agree to our posted Terms of Use.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To learn more about Magnolia Ventures and its portfolio companies, click here.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
