Microsoft Buys Greenfield Online for 1/2 Billion
Microsoft is looking to boost its online shopping search market share. The company has announced an acquisition of Greenfield Online, owners of popular shopping search site Ciao.com. This is the largest purchase Microsoft has made in a while. The company appears to be playing around with the money it had left from the Yahoo deal falling through. They dropped 486 million big ones on this one.
According to ComScore, Ciao has over 26.5 million unique visitors per month, and the site features over 5 million product reviews.
Still, there is some question as to why Microsoft would spend such a large amount of money on such a purchase. MG Siegler at Venture Beat writes:
Microsoft's play here is apparently to become more ingrained in European consumer search and online habits. Going after more shopping traffic seems questionable considering the laughable move it made back in May to pay users to use its Live search engine to look for purchases to make. Given that Microsoft's search share once again fell last month, it appears that strategy failed, as we thought it would.
Greenfield is not all about shopping search. It is well known for online surveys, but Microsoft is apparently not interested in this division of the company. Microsoft will sell it to an already existent, but unspecified buyer, according to PaidContent.org.
Microsoft says Ciao's technology platform, online community, and extensive merchant relationships will be integrated within the Live Search platform to deliver a "richer, more rewarding" experience for advertisers and consumers. Microsoft also says its search has three objectives:
- Deliver the best results
- Simplify key tasks
- Innovate in the business model
(or simplify how consumers research and purchase online)
"Work is ongoing to ensure that Live Search delivers across all these categories, building on recent progress including the acquisition of Multimap and the decision to open a European Search Technology Centre this financial year," says Microsoft.
Will any of this have a significant effect on Microsoft's search market share? That remains to be seen, but the general feeling is a skeptical one.
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