When you've got nothing left to lose...
It’s no secret that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has been waning in popularity, with some statistics showing IE’s global browser usage market share hitting a new low of 65.8% this year as Firefox continues it’s phenomenal growth (22.56%) and new browsers such as Google Chrome (1.58%) and Apple Safari (8.3%) diversify the market.
So when flat out lies and deception still can’t convince users to stay with Microsoft’s behind-the-game software, why not just resort to blatant bribing?
That’s exactly what Microsoft Australia are now doing in attempt to get people to download their new version of IE, with the promise of a chance at winning $10,000. “We’ve buried $10,000 somewhere on the internet and the first one to find it, gets to keep it,” exclaims their competition site, TenGrandIsBuriedHere.com. Presumably the ten grand isn’t, as the title proclaims, buried on the competition website itself. Of course, you’ll only be able to find the prize using IE8.
Microsoft is not new at bribing potential users, however, they attempted to bribe Aussies with Apple iPods and other prizes to use their search engine, Live Search. But it wasn’t enough to gain them a decent market share and they’ve now completely re-branded the service as “Bing”.
I Hate Ads encourages readers to use more advanced browsers such as Safari, Chrome or Firefox to support competition in the browser industry and the advancement of web standards.
