Search engine users could get a cut of the online action, Gates suggests.
In an effort to draw business away from Google, Microsoft announced plans to share some of its online advertising revenue with consumers who use its Internet search engine.
Gates said that search engines like Google get their revenues from advertising because people use these search engines.
Google’s business model is not based on free software, he said. Their business model is based on advertisements from which they make a lot of money. But they do not share these advertising revenues with the end users who help them get the revenue, Gates said. Google keeps all of the money with itself, he added.
Microsoft’s Plans
As described by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates in a presentation in India, users of MSN Search would get some of the site’s advertising revenue back in the form of money or free content and software, according to The Wall Street Journal. The more users a site has, typically the more advertising revenue it can generate, and further details were not disclosed.
The panel discussion was televised in two parts by New Delhi Television during his tour of the country.
Gates has been on a four-day visit to India. During this visit, apart from focusing on his charities, Gates is also meeting with business leaders, government officials at the federal and state levels and developers.
When a startup like Newsvine Inc., an online distributor of user-generated news, offers outright bribery to attract attention, it is one thing. It’s generally understandable when GoodSearch, which uses Yahoo Inc. search technology, distributes a portion of its ad revenue to charities or schools selected by users.
But Microsoft’s apparent intention to, in effect, offer something like a nickel-a-search turns heads enough to strain a neck muscle.
Microsoft has looked into sharing some of its online-advertising revenue with consumers, but at this time there is nothing more to share, a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. She had no additional comment.
Microsoft may in fact be following the lead of Google Inc., the leading Internet search engine.
In early November, it introduced a new program for advertisers. To entice more Web interests to feature ads delivered by Google, the Mountain View, Calif.-based Internet giant through its AdSense program, began to share some of its advertising revenue with Web site publishers who carry ads that Google sells to advertisers.
When using this "sea change" as context, actually paying someone to use a product is within the scope of Microsoft’s business model. A prevailing factor at work here, possibly, is the growing significance of customer participation in the fabric of the Internet.
Major Internet interests Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and others, are increasingly offering online features built upon contributions from registered users.
A new fact of life for Internet search engines—that everyone’s using them now—may also help explain Microsoft’s motives. Some 91 percent of Internet users now routinely search for information during their Web sessions, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.
That implies that there is virtually no one left that has not latched onto a favorite search engine by now, leaving room for such desperate-sounding moves.
By offering little nuggets as reward for use, Microsoft is pushing this current trend of interaction to an extreme.