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May 20, 2008
Microsoft to Launch "Live Search Cashback"
The major Microsoft Live Search announcement scheduled for tomorrow will be the official launch of a new product: Microsoft Live Search Cash Back.
The program in partnership with eBay and its PayPal unit will offer cash back to consumers who search on Microsoft Live and make a purchase. The announcement will be made in conjunction with a taped message from eBay CEO John Donahoe. The technology is based on the acquisition of Jellyfish by Microsoft in September, 2007.
The announcement is expected to be made by Satya Nadella, SVP Search, portal & Advertising Platform Group, Microsoft, prior to Bill Gates' presentation on "Connecting the Future." The goal is to differentiate Microsoft's vertical search experience for users while leveraging improvements in the core search algorithm.
Microsoft believes the Live Search Cash Back program will align the interests of consumers and the search engine, putting Microsoft "on the same side as the consumer."
The job of Live Search will be to match the most relevant products with the most relevant consumers.
Microsoft will likely offer advertisers a CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition) model rather than a traditional search engine Cost-Per-Click (CPC) auction.
Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, said in a taped interview that the program would help overcome the barriers of first-time buyers of shoes online.
A Barnes & Noble executive stated that clickthrough rates and purchases had increased through the use of the Jellyfish pilot program.
The following message is posted on the Jellyfish.com Web site:
"As part of our pledge to save you money on the products you buy, our Cash Back rewards service is currently offline to perform necessary service upgrades and enhancements. Jellyfish Account holders will receive an e-mail notification when our Cash Back service is up and running again. Thanks for your patience.Using Jellyfish, consumers could compare prices of products from a number of online stores. Retailers paid Jellyfish fees to feature products. A portion of that fee was refunded to consumers who bought through the Jellyfish site.
Jellyfish also offered "Smack Auctions." During each Smack show, Jellyfish would auction off new products in a unique price dropping format. Every second that ticks off the clock, Jellyfish would drop the price of the product, until the deal sold out.
Jellyfish founder Brian Wiegand is agroup manager at Microsoft. Last year, ye stated, Microsoft is "investing heavily in shopping and e-commerce."
Microsoft closed the deal on Sept. 27, 2007 but didn't announce it until Oct. 2, 2007.
This isn't the first foray of Microsoft into the world of search engine incentives.
Microsoft Live Club is an ongoing experiment with incentivizing searchers but never on the Live Search Cash Back scale. For example, Microsoft Live Search Club lets users play games. A completed gives earns tickets toward prizes, such as Zune accessories, song downloads and ringtones.
Microsoft's official statement on the announcement:
On Wednesday, we will be announcing a major new initiative that our search teams have been driving. We are getting better and better with our core algorithmic search, and at the same time, we are investing to differentiate in vertical experiences and to disrupt the current model. You'll hear more about our plans Wednesday.
Posted by Kevin Heisler on May 20, 2008 5:15 PM
Comments
I launched what I believe to be the first Cashback search engine today - guess I beat them by a day after 8 months of head banging development!
Now is this good or bad news for this new site?
Mind you, I don't think they have CPA for advertisers like me.......so little guy in his home office beat you MS!
Yes it's late, yes I am tired, and no MS Cashback is probably not good news for me.
Simon Parker May 20, 2008 7:07 PM
If this is the major new initiative, it looks like you landed a nice scoop--congrats!
Matt Cutts May 20, 2008 7:47 PM
You can't find Cashback on Microsoft Live. In order to find it, you need to search for it on Google:
http://jenslapinski.wordpress.com/2008/05/22/live-cant-find-cashback-but-google-does/
I guess that as long as the search result quality on Live is at that level, Google won't have to worry too much.
Jens May 22, 2008 8:58 AM
That concept is pretty ground breaking in terms of its size.
Do you think there will be any reaction to this from Yahoo! or Google? I see Matt Cutts is on this already so it would be interesting to hear his views?
How about a blog posting Matt?
John May 22, 2008 10:10 AM
Cashback shopping may be a fun little side project for Microsoft, but unfortualty, jellyfish.com, the website that the cash back shoping spun off of is now going to suffer complete collaps as a result. The strenght of Jellyfish.com that made it so alluring was the social gathering and smack shopping that help peoples interest. Unfortunatly, that social network is now being ripped apart at the seams..
Not much of a feelgood attitude, as this was more of a social gathering place than facebook for many. People were on the site 24/7 discussing things and hanging out waiting for the party to never end.
Thanks Microsoft for screwing up another on.
JMHSRV July 1, 2008 4:29 PM
IT'S A SCAM!!! don't do the cashback, it's just a scam. I bought a wii fit on ebay, payed with paypal, and followed and met all the requirements. I signed up for cash back and started the 60 day wait to get paid. About 3 weeks in, my account with microsoft "disappeared". I logged in to my account about 5 times since last month, with no problems, my cash back was there, and linked to my paypal account, everything was golden, but then I tried to log in again 3 days later and my account is gone. Microsoft is telling me it never existed, despite the fact that I've logged in multiple times, the last being last week.(and i only have 1 e-mail address). Now my cash is gone, and it's too late to return the product (which I only got because of the cash back offer), i bet it's just a scam to get people spending money during the recession.
Alyssa July 9, 2008 10:04 AM
I posted the last comment about it being a scam- i appologize, it's not. Some of their customer service reps are incompetant, but i can't say its a scam at this point. after a few tries I got a decent rep that fixed my problems.
Alyssa July 12, 2008 12:46 PM
I can't think for one moment that many consumers are instantly going to switch to such a bad search engine for cashback alone. I bet the % of search traffic directly relating to online purchasing is surprisingly small.
James Mason November 19, 2008 2:12 AM
This is a pretty pathetic attempt by MSFT to steal market share from Google. The only way I ever foresee this happening is they build a better search engine.
James Mason November 19, 2008 2:17 AM
Live Search Cashback is a scam.
I bought a HP PC and was promised 20% cashback. After 6 weeks, Live Search sent me an e-mail saying that HP informed them that my purchased was returned and hence cancelled my Cashback, however the PC was still sitting in my house. I did not return or exchange anything with PC. In fact I had not even contacted HP since the PC was delivered.
THIS IS A SCAM!!!!
Hank November 21, 2008 11:14 AM
it will be interesting to see what google reply will be. Perhaps they will introduce cashback hehe.
cashback December 14, 2008 9:26 AM
I would not be surprised if Google launched a similar service. I think it would be a wise move on their part.
MS Cash Back March 19, 2009 11:22 PM
