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MSN hopes viral campaign will boost search
An innovative new search engine from Microsoft features a sassy brunette, Ms Dewey, who stands ready to help users with their search.On MsDewey.com, which requires Flash, the eponymous heroine stands behind a desk and will comment on your search, which itself uses MSN Live results, Chicago's Courier News reports.
For example, if you type in "election", she will say: "I was hoping to run for election, but they rezoned my district. Too many beautiful people in one county, I guess."
Other times she will look off-screen and say: "You're kidding, right? Hey, Ricardo, come get a look at what this guy did a search for."
Microsoft is not promoting the site, instead hoping that it will spread via word of mouth in a viral campaign. It remains to be seen whether the comments would be amusing or irritating after a while.
The innovation comes at a time when MSN is struggling to keep pace with other search engines such as Google and Yahoo.
The sector is becoming increasingly popular with advertisers because of the huge potential held in terms of pay per click and other advertisements.
Microsoft News posted on 16 November 2006
