Or something like it! I remember watching Bill Gates’ interview long back (Dec, 2005), where he was asked about Google’s business model and about free software and he answered, ” I think, when you use a free search engine (like Google), if somebody is making a lot of money from advertisers, they ought to share it with you.” So I concluded that the day Microsoft decides to go all out against other search engines, it would launch a search engine that would change search marketing dynamics and actually share the revenue from advertisers with users. And I thought, could they actually make that happen?

From the looks of it, seems like Microsoft is close. I believe here is a test version. And they’ll announce a new search advertising model at Advance 08 Conference in Bellevue, Washington today!

Would microsoft go for a pay-per-acquisition model rather than google’s pay-per-click (where users still burn a lot of cash)? Will they really share revenue with visitors? What would the market dynamics be then? And surely Yahoo! would fit in somewhere. Mr. Kevin Johnson (President, MSFT Platforms & Services), we’re waiting for your presentation!

- Archit