SigEx Ventures :Microsoft boost by chicken gameby Ioana Madalina Tantareanu

By playing a shrewd game of chicken,Microsoft, long stuck in third place behind Google and Yahoo in the search wars,last month suddenly boosted its share of the market.A whopping gain of nearly 3 percentage points over the prior mounth,Microsoft Corp.'s search share climbed to 13.2 percent in June, according to research group comScore data. Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. first noticed the company`s improvement because they both saw share decline more than 1 percent. People weren`t encouraged by the quality of Microsoft's search results to type over 300 million more queries into Microsofy search boxes in June, it was Chicktionary. Letter scramble puzzle with chicken theme is an addictive game, designed to introduce Web users to features of Microsoft's Live Search engine. When the player writes a word formed from three or more letters, displayed by a clucky group of hens, he must search it on the web. Just one Chicktionary game may add 35 or more queries to Microsoft's monthly total, without the attention of the player neccessary. The Live Search Club gives words that cannot be found without a web search or a matching game that includes verifying the answer by a search. For successfully completed games, Microsoft awards points (20 points for a round of Chicktionary), and players can use them to buy prizes (20,000 points for a copy of Windows Vista Home Premium, normally $239). Prize-crazy hackers have already devised "bots," or automated programs that rack up Live Search Club points. Microsoft said it monitors the games and cancels ill-gotten points or prizes, and comScore said bots don't factor into market share calculations.

by Ioana Madalina Tantareanu for SigEx Ventures (http://sigexventures.com)

SigEx Ventures's matrix of properties are quickly becoming leaders in digital telebroadcasting, free content delivery allowing people to easily talk, view, upload and share through free online TV broadcasting, free unlimited global calls, video blogs and SMS. SigEx Ventures invests in projects deploying "free" to add-on royalty revenue models