Use Yahoo search, get a reward?

By: Margaret Kane
Topics

Yahoo is polling users on what it would take to get them to make its search engine their primary choice for online queries, the company confirmed Wednesday.

Possible incentives include frequent flyer miles, discounted or free music and movies, and Outlook access.

While Yahoo was not announcing any definite plans, bloggers scoffed at the proposal. If you have to pay people to use your service, they said, things must be pretty bad.

Blog community response:

"So, with all three of these companies talking about bribery as a method to steal users away from Google, it becomes increasingly clear just how 'sticky' (argh, buzzword) Google really has become. Getting people to switch is not easy. It can't just be about catching up, or being marginally better--but about being so overwhelmingly better that people can't afford not to switch."
--Techdirt

"Ultimately, if Yahoo wants people to switch, they'd have to pay a lot, since having to use a search engine makes it harder to get used to it. They'd probably have to pay more than its worth."
--Inside Google

"Don't pay people to use search--pay people to help improve Yahoo search. Give anyone a tiny micropayment for a tiny contribution to Y search. Leverage the massively distributed specialization of the edge to improve/filter/rank results."
--Bubble Generation