The use of bingo competitions to win readers marked a particular low point in the UK’s newspaper circulation wars. It showed a fundamental lack of belief in the core product. In a mature market, the newspapers ran out of ideas for ways to set themselves apart.

So what should we make of Microsoft’s latest gimmick to drum up traffic for its search engine? It seems the order has gone out to try just about anything that might persuade people to switch from Google and Yahoo! According to this story on Marketwatch, Microsoft is testing the idea of giving away prizes like T-shirts and videogames to get people to use its search engine more. This comes after Live Search Club, which temporarily boosted Microsoft’s market share this summer by getting people to search while playing online word games. 

Search is not a mature market. Far from it. Bill Gates likes to say that search is still in its infancy, and that there is plenty of room left for world-beating innovation. So why is Microsoft behaving this way? With Google still forging ahead at full steam, it looks like desperation.