Some days ago, Bill Gates (the Microsoft Chairman) announced a new plan to compete with Google, a move that is being promoted two weeks after the software giant abandoned the bid for Yahoo.
Microsoft wants to pay people to use its Live search engine and buy products through Live Search cashback. According to Microsoft, the initiative to attract users by paying cash is an attempt of the company to convince the advertisers that Microsoft has a viable plan for competing with Google in the growing market of online advertising.
“This is giving you a reason why you should use a particular search engine,” Gates told attendees at the Advance 08 advertising conference.
We’ll see if “Live Search cashback” works or not. This new program would attract more users, and therefore more advertisers; but some advertising executives have already said that they are not sure if this strategy would help Microsoft.
Related article
Google, whose revenues comes from the advertising market (with some additional sources like Google Apps for companies), is starting a new advertising online field: ads on RSS feeds. These feeds are “.xml” files which stay up-to-date with the latest posts published in blogs or web pages. The visitors can subscribe themselves by using specific programs or some functions in the new browsers, which include feed readers.
Google looks for all the possible ways to insert ads, including radio, YouTube videos and, of course, the ads on Internet. Up to now, the RSS feeds were almost ignored by advertisers, but they always have a great potential.
Feedburner is a RSS feed management provider that was bought by Google, one year ago (approximately). It provides feed promotion and optimization tools that can be used by webmasters and podcasters. The new type of advertising will be managed by AdSense and AdWords, which are services for webmasters, publishers and advertisers.
Bloggers can take advantage of this by using FeedBurner, which from now on will have a look and feel more like other Google services.
Feedburner announcement
Yahoo!, the venerable search engine, will use the Google online advertising technology in a temporary alliance, which means a menace to the Microsoft’s plan to buy the Sunnyvale-based company.
Microsoft reacted with indignation at this deal, that was published recently, by commenting that the agreement will put 90% of the online advertising in the Google’s hands with disastrous consequences for the competition in this market.
Some experts had also said that Google would face difficulties with the anti-monopoly laws of United States if it undertakes any alliance with Yahoo!.
The cooperation between Google and Yahoo! will last two weeks and it will be limited to a small portion of the ads that appear on the search results page of Yahoo!. A maximum of three percent of the queries will be “sponsored” by Google Adsense.
Related post
Some interesting links on my preferred sites and other stumbled webs:
* In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop: The bloggers’ lifestyle is not the healthier lifestyle. Matt Richtel on NYTimes talks about how this work type (work from home) could be a cause of death if it is very exhaustive and obsessive.
* ShoeMoney Playbook - how to build a successful online business: Jeremy Schoemaker will launch a new ebook about online businesses soon. If you want, you can bookmark this site and check it regularly.
* Marketing Qi Business Intensive 2: Free weekly live calls with top marketers and business professionals. Valuable information for your business, or even for your career.
* Student essay editors and thesis proofreaders: I had wanted to have this resource when I was in college. Basically, this is an “Essay Editing” and “Thesis Editing” service for students who are looking for better grades.
* Extreme PLR Makeover: Private label rights allow you to make another author’s work show like it’s yours by changing its content. Check out this site for accessing a Private Label Rights Product library.
* The Art Of SEO - The Science Of PPC: Recommended blog. Interesting and useful articles on search engine optimization and online advertising.
* WordPress 2.5: This is the last version of the better blogging platform. This blog will be updated soon 
The economy is everywhere. Its laws are applicable even in societies that don’t exist, which are inhabited by people that are not real. It is what has happened in several online games like World of Warcraft, Hattrick or Second Life that have suffered diverse economic problems with monetary losses that impact the real world sometimes.
World of Warcraft is an online role-playing game where the player participates in a fantastic universe similar to The Lord of the Rings. It has more than 10 million registered users, according to the programming company (Blizzar). About half of them are in Asia. In fact, the problem came from Asia: in this game, the most valuable currency is the gold, very difficult of getting, and for that reason, some people and companies decided to make business, mainly in China. They got “gold” during 24 hours a day, then they sold it to the other users who didn’t want to get it by themselves. The transaction was carried out to exchange “gold” for real money in auctions websites like Ebay (for example, if you want to buy 5000 gold coins, then you need about 150 Euros). This way, a scarce thing began to be plentiful, the gold was devaluated and the inflation was caused by this. In this game, the cost of “living” was radically increased. For this reason, the company closed the accounts of 114000 people who were making money by this method.
Something very similar happened in another video game: “Final Fantasy XI”. The owner closed more than 4000 accounts of players who exchanged virtual assets for real money. This situation also caused inflation. The action of the programmers was definitive. They reduced the money flow by eliminating several millions in order to decrease prices: the European Central Bank dream.
Some virtual worlds have a surprising similarity with reality. Second Life has cases of real estate speculation and financial crisis. This game uses the linden dollars as currency to buy properties and virtual objects. It is possible to exchange them for real money in a market implemented by Linden Lab (a programmer). In this market, a dollar is equal to about 250 lindens. The business opportunities are always present: there is a story about a Chinese woman (her nickname is Anshe Chung) who appeared on Business Week cover. She won $250000 when she sold “lands” where she built hotels and apartments.
Business Week article (2006)
