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Will Microsoft Increase Its Market Share In Search 3 Months After Launching Live Search Cashback?

Hubdub users say: No (58% chance )
Combining all predictions, the current most likely outcome is No with a probability of 58% (unchanged in last 1 day)

On May 21st, Microsoft announced its new strategy to get people to use its search engine, Live Search Cashback. They can't make it better so they are going to pay you to use it. Microsoft will pay consumers who find and buy a product via Live Search a certain percentage of the purchase price back. The blogosphere is split on whether this will have any difference to their share of the search market.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch writes "This new approach is both desperate and brilliant." and "Will It Work? Yes, it will work and it will almost certainly increase Microsoft’s market share in search, particularly in commerce search."

However he seems alone in his enthusiasm. Henry Blodget at SAI says it is a great idea that won't work. MG Siegler at VentureBeat is more scathing saying "The question is if this will have any meaningful effect on Microsoft’s current 3rd-place search market share in the search business. The answer? Probably not. Microsoft should worry about improving its algorithms or coming up with a completely new way of doing search — not paying users to use an inferior product."

So by August will Microsoft manage to increase its market share from the 9.1% recorded in April?
 
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Yes
42%
No
58%
Activity: H$11,321
Question suspends in 5 weeks
All questions are settled by Hubdub according to settlement info provided by the question creator.

Settlement details: Question will be settled as a Yes if Microsoft's Domestic Core Search Market Share (as measured by comScore) in August is higher than 9.1% (which is its share in April). Otherwise it will be settled as No.

Suspend date: Mon 1st Sep 12:59am PDT (5 weeks to go)

Initial likelihoods: Yes: 50%

Action history:

Created Thu 22nd May 6:33am PDT by punditwatch[Admin]
Clarified Fri 23rd May 5:59am PDT by nigeleccles[Admin]: Note, if Microsoft were to buy either Yahoo, Ask, AOL or any other major search player this will not be included in calculating their numbers
All questions are settled by Hubdub according to settlement info provided by the question creator.

Settlement details: Question will be settled as a Yes if Microsoft's Domestic Core Search Market Share (as measured by comScore) in August is higher than 9.1% (which is its share in April). Otherwise it will be settled as No.... read all

 
1 day ago
pepe predicted No (H$20)
2 days ago
dan_dum predicted Yes (H$50)
6 days ago
rossmunce predicted No (H$500)
1 week ago
falcon2000eg predicted No (H$50)
1 week ago
nigeleccles[Admin] predicted No (H$1,000)
1 week ago
nigeleccles[Admin] predicted No (H$1,000)
3 weeks ago
danhanley predicted No (H$220)
3 weeks ago
jarrod predicted Yes (H$50)
3 weeks ago
ericfriedman predicted Yes (H$100)
4 weeks ago
f248parlaycos predicted Yes (H$50)
  1 arnos
I predict people finding stuff though a good search engine and then finding it again from the MS search engine only if they want to buy it and get the discount.
posted 5 weeks ago
But now TechCrunch says they are doing better: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/18/microsoft-searches-jump-15-after-live-cashback-launch/

I'm still betting they go South.
posted 5 days ago

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