Thank you, Microsoft Live Search...

I'm showing my age a bit, but I remember well an old TV and print advertising campaign where the catch phrase was "Thank you, Paine Webber". The backstory always involved some yuppie-ish 50-something man or woman who was enjoying their early retirement by sailing their yacht to Tahiti or golfing in Hawaii or whatever, all because they'd had the foresight to invest their spare change under the guidance of the financial whizboys at the Paine, Webber & Co. brokerage firm and had been handsomely rewarded for the effort.

Since that time, Paine, Webber & Co. has been snarfed up by Swiss banking giant UBS AG, the ads have long-since disappeared from the boob tube, and UBS is now under investigation by Congress and the IRS for their possible role in facilitating tax 'fraud' by those selfsame 50-something yuppies by concealing those retirees' hard-earned assets in anonymous Swiss bank accounts, far from the eyes of the snooping tax thieves (um, I mean, those tireless and dedicated federal government employees with the tax agent badges and the computers and the guns who are just doing their jobs by diligently collecting our patriotic tax payments so that they can be redistributed to more worthy beneficiaries). But that's all a digression that could get some unfortunate and penniless blogger into trouble with the authorities (not to mention turning off all of those hapless blog readers who were expecting to find a trove of high-quality, technology-oriented stream-of-consciousness prose here, and not some bait-and-switch libertarian polemics) if he were to venture too far down that path. So, back to the good stuff.

Now it's my time to say thank you, not to Paine Webber, but to everybody's favorite punching bag Microsoft, and their always-a-bridesmaid-never-a-bride search engine at http://www.live.com/.

It seems that as hard as they try, with the "I'm a PC and you're not" advertisements and the browser bundling and the failed bid to purchase Yahoo and all that other nonsense, Microsoft is still running way behind in their quest to capture a majority of the Search-engine eyeballs (that sounds gross, doesn't it? But I didn't invent the term, I'm only the messenger. If you don't believe me, take a look at http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=%22search+engine+eyeballs%22&form=QBRE or http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22search+engine+eyeballs%22&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq= for proof. I wouldn't lie to you.)

It's pretty embarassing when a humongous corporation, one such as Microsoft that's so often in the public spotlight, invests so much and gets so little return. So when all else failed, when all of their pleas and plots and plans and even their imprecations came to naught, what was their obvious next move? Try Bribery (hey, maybe I should trademark that - it would make a great marketing slogan, wouldn't it?).

Let me say it again, just for kicks. Try Bribery. After all, as a strategy for enhancing the bottom line it seemingly works well enough. At least it does until the time when it stops working (see Randy Cunningham, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham - oops, there he goes again, straying into dangerous territory).

It seems that Microsoft has been getting into the paid search business. Not just getting in, but jumping in, leaping in, with both feet, an arm, a leg, and a big, fat wallet (no, not that Fat Wallet http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals - I cleverly left off the leading caps when writing about Microsoft's fat wallet as a way of differentiating it from the Fat Wallet forum that I mentioned in an earlier post. And no, Fat Wallet is not paying me for the publicity - although, full disclosure, they did send me a free T-shirt last month, but that was completely unrelated to this blog - after all, I only started writing the blog today - and even though I asked them for a size L they sent me a medium and it was too small to wear - maybe I'll eBay it).

In this context, paid search means that they pay you for having the wisdom to use their search engine, and not that you pay them to search.

By now you must be wondering, "What on earth does this blather have to do with telescopes, anyway?"

Oh, I remember, that's what I was trying to get to all along - I bought my $399 Celestron Onyx 80EDF telescope for only $299 thanks to Microsoft Live Search. And I bought the other Onyx accessories at a 25% discount, too, all on Microsoft's dime.

So, that's why I say, sincerely, "Thank you, Microsoft Live Search..."

Stay tuned for the details on how I did it.