Bing Rewards

Apparently, Bing has a "rewards program" now. As in, if you search you can earn points and then redeem them for rewards.

Now, I've seen many variations on the "rewards for search" concept. There's Swagbucks, which is apparently owned by a rabbi. And it has myriad competitors like Zoombucks which is totally not just the same thing but with the serial numbers filed off for trademark reasons. I think even Publishers Clearing House has something along those lines. However, this is the first I've heard of one of the "big" search engines doing such a thing.

Microsoft probably still has aspirations of Bing taking on Google someday, and yet they've thrown it down with that lot. Now there's nothing actually wrong with being in that lot. In fact, those companies probably make a fair profit and their users probably get valuable rewards. But it's a different league of online entity; smaller, and perhaps even a bit of a niche market. For one of Google's peers to start offering rewards points like a little specialty company is extremely slutty indeed.