Jakarta, Indonesia Sentinel — In a bold effort to lure internet users from Google, Microsoft is offering an impressive $1 million sweepstakes for those willing to make the switch to its search engine, Bing. This campaign, which began last month, is open to Bing users residing in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
In addition to the grand prize, Microsoft has announced that 10 other lucky winners will receive $10,000 each. This incentive aims to draw more users to Bing’s platform, according to Gizmodo on Wednesday (Nov. 6, 2024).
To participate in the sweepstakes, users must sign in to a Microsoft account or create one if they haven’t yet. The contest entry process includes a few additional questions, allowing participants to claim their entry for the chance to win. After claiming an entry, users are encouraged to visit the contest page weekly to discover additional ways to improve their odds of winning.
Participation in the sweepstakes requires using Bing to conduct searches, encouraging users to increase their Bing usage frequency. The more searches users complete on Bing, the higher their chances of winning, with each search accumulating virtual tickets that act as entries. Each user can register up to 200 entries to maximize their winning opportunities.
The activities required to gain entries can be ranging from setting Bing as their default search engine and using it for everyday inquiries to installing Microsoft Edge or the Bing app for iOS and Android. Users can even boost their entries by using Bing for services like weather updates, translations, or recipe searches.
Additional entries are also awarded to users who make purchases from the Microsoft Store, or who commit to a “Bing daily streak” by conducting three Bing searches daily for seven consecutive days. To further increase their chances, users can share the sweepstakes link with up to five friends, urging them to switch to Bing as well.
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Despite launching Bing in 2009, Microsoft has struggled to gain significant traction against Google’s dominant search engine. Microsoft has invested heavily in enhancing Bing’s user experience, integrating features like the ChatGPT-based Copilot AI in 2023. While these efforts led to a brief uptick in Bing’s market share to 4%, the share has since slipped back to around 3% as of early November.
With a total prize pool worth $1 million, Microsoft’s latest strategy appears to be a last-ditch effort to expand Bing’s user base and to incentivize individuals to explore its services in a market still heavily dominated by Google.
(Raidi/Agung)
