Post Yahoo!, Cashback challenge from Live.

Post Yahoo! debacle ( I don't consider it a debacle though), Microsoft is working hard, it seems. Their creative brains are being squeezed to get innovative and useful ideas for the net. This time around I would try to cover some of the new innovations and improvisations by Microsoft.
Live Search Cashback
How did Google own the web? Search engine and ads related to that. Yes, and this is what Microsoft tried to rip apart with a Yahoo! takeover. But when Balmer said, we have different strategies, he was not bluffing.
The mastercard ad says "there are somethings money can't buy, for everything else, there is mastercard" The same will apply for Live search cashback. The basic idea is, you search for the goodies you want to buy online using live search. You get the list of shoppers' who sell the item and the price each of them offer. And once you choose a shopper and go forward for the deal, Microsoft will pay you a bonus, for using their search system. Yes, they are sharing the revenue directly with the consumer. Nice idea. And they are not keeping anything back. They are sharing the FULL profit to the customer. That is indeed a bold decision. No, that is not the only reason why you should opt for Live cashback. It offers innovative features like bottomline price, where you get the actual price you will have to pay, after tax, shipping etc. So you won't be fooled to go all the way to the merchant site, add to cart etc and at the end find a different price.
Also, enrolling is a breeze, just submit your mail id and go ahead with your purchase, you get the incentive and in the subsequent purchases, the cashback account accumulates the money. Once it reaches 5$ you can request payout.
I tried with searching for "windows vista ultimate" and I got a couple of hundred deals, it was easy to choose one from the list, as each search entry had details of base price, product details etc. I went ahead with my choice, and enrolled to Live search cashback. The price of the product was 180$ and I got a cashbak of 10$. Yeah! it is that huge!! I would whole heartedly recommend this, not just because of the cashback, but the genuineness of the idea. (Don't get baffled by the low price, I bought an OEM version).

Community Clips
You already have your Youtube for videos, but Microsoft is bringing up this new portal for people to post help videos on Microsoft Products like Word, Excel, powerpoint etc. You can join the community, post your videos, share information, rate videos, etc. Looks nice. It is still in the Officelabs, waiting for it to come public.

TaskMarket
Again another labs product. Not much of a breakthrough idea in this, there are many sites like Rentacoder, getafreelancer, etc doing the same. The basic idea is, you post a job; logo design, article proofing, small webdesign project etc. And coders bid for it, you choose your coder and get the job done. Nothing new, except that it is a Microsoft's!

Live Search Cashback
TaskMarket
Community Clips

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