Microsoft Pays $3 to Set Bing as The Default Search Engine!
By: Abbas
July 14, 2010
(1 votes)
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Microsoft is going all out and doing everything humanly possible to eat into Google’s search market share. Google dropped by 1% in the month of June as Yahoo and Bing gained .6% each. Though the drop cannot be directly tied to Bings aggressive marketing tactics just based on 1 months results, it would be interesting to see if the trend continues.
Microsoft is currently paying $3 to anyone who decide to set Bing as their default search engine. The company has tied up with DonorsChoose.org where users can donate the $3 they earn by switching to Bing.
So here is how it works..
- Visit Search With Purpose
- Click on the “Choose Bing and Donate” button
- Click “Upgrade” or “Add” on the popup that alerts you of the new search engine being added
- Enter your e-mail address to receive the donation code.
- Go to DonorsChoose.org once you receive the code in the e-mail to donate to any of the projects listed on the site.
This method of switching from your current search engine to Bing works on FireFox and IE but does not work on Chrome. You are prompted to enter your e-mail address when “Choose Bing and Donate” is clicked and the code is sent as soon as you enter the e-mail address without changing the search engine preference.
You can tell that the program is working and quite a few people are switching from their current search engine to Bing as the donation amount went up by $3-4k since the post was published this morning.
Google is gained such popularity that people simply won’t try a new alternative even if it’s better. In such cases I think initiatives such as this are totally justified just to get people to try the new technology.
You can always switch back if you don’t like what you see on Bing. Click here to visit Search With Purpose and swtich to Bing.
What do you think, is donating $3 to a school project worth giving Bing a try?
By: Nicolas on July 15, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Omg how selvish can people be?!? Seriously, blaming Microsoft of "using" charity as an excuse for forcing us to try bing? Which as stated in the article can be removed at any time.
Seriously you can't take the 5 min to click a few times, go to your inbox and follow all steps? Microsoft may get a tax write off, maybe, don't know, don't care. Kinda unimportant because at the same time the website will get a lot of attention, and those charities can expect a pretty nice donation.
@Jockey: OMG you're such a retard. Even blaming gates of some crap. Do you get of your cave often? Gates hasn't worked for Microsoft for a while. At the moment he pretty much enjoys giving all his and Warren Buffet's money away to charity and research. Yeah who's the asshole now...
By: mwilliams on July 15, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Heres my code: HHK9Z9S5 Anyone whose already made the account take it.
By: PF on July 16, 2010 at 3:31 am
So Microsoft has now restored to bribing people to use their search engine. Well, if enough of use do it, maybe we'll bankrupt the Big MS. Now, that would be a result.
Plokers.
By: nicbot on July 16, 2010 at 4:24 pm
http://www.ghacks.net/2010/07/16/microsoft-co-founder-pledges-billions -to-philanthropy/
You can bag on MS all you want, but the bottom line is 'they' do and continue to give back in many ways...and substantially so.
By: sepeck on July 16, 2010 at 10:24 pm
You all do know Google pays for defaults set to Google in things like Firefox right? They pay others for the default setting as well. Not really a secret and frankly I have found that BING is working more and more for my needs then Google is. Some serious innovation going on while trying to catch up.
By: sepeck on July 17, 2010 at 8:45 pm
@pf - yes, they learned from Google how to do that.