Microsoft to provide cashback for Live Search

Just recently I mentioned that Microsoft was reviving Live Search for Products. And quite a while ago I wrote about Microsoft acquiring Jellyfish and I wondered when they would have integrated Jellyfish in Microsoft Search. Well, that time has come. Micrsoft just announced their Live Search cashback program (which is nothing new, Jellyfish is doing this for years now). However, it is a good PR stunt. Microsoft about their ‘new’ service:

Now you can get cashback savings by using Live Search to find great deals on the products you want from the stores that you know and trust.

Here you can see how it works. But, you could also go to Jellyfish 😉

Microsoft reviving Live Search for products?

According to Liveside.net Microsoft has just launched a brand new page for product search. Microsoft hasn’t improved product search for quite some time, so this might be a sign that they are taking this more seriously. In a previous post I mentioned that Steve Balmer acknowledged the importance of comparison shopping. He also said that they should be able to generate 25% in advertising.

Currently the Live Search for Products doesn’t work, which is pretty silly. Every search results in the following message:

Sorry, we did not find any product results for this search.

If Live Search for Products actually works then it would look like the image below. You are now able to refine the search results by user opinions, brands, category, and price range. Liveside.net concluded that in comparison to the old product search, search results have improved dramatically. Other improvements, although available before as part of the Shopping Search vertical already, include the ability to compare prices and view user ratings and reviews.

The new look of Product Search:

Let’s see if Microsoft will integrate other features soon. I still expect some kind of integration of Jellyfish in their Product Search.

Yahoo! wants to get rid of Kelkoo…

The reason for this decision is that Yahoo! is not happy about the performance of Kelkoo, which they acquired three years ago for EUR 475 million According to the newspaper Le Monde, anyone offering more than EUR 500 million can call themselves the new owner of Kelkoo…

An intesting fact is that Microsoft just invested in Jellyfish (see my earlier post on them here), so in contrast to Yahoo! Microsoft does see big opportunities in the price comparison area. Probably that is also the area where Microsoft wants to generate extra money. In a meeting with advertising agencies Steve Balmer mentioned that within a few years 25% of revenues of Microsoft should be generated by advertising.