Fun and prizes are at the Live Search Club.

I love it whenever a company, in the course of promoting its own products, lets consumers profit as well. Microsoft's Live Search Club is an online gaming web site with a few unusual features. First of all, all the games are word games and all integrate search results from Live into the gaming experience. For instance, you might be playing Flexicon, the Live Search Club's crossword game, and want to see if one of your answers is correct: your answer will be checked and a Live search will be conducted related to your answer. More usefully, you might be unable to figure out an answer and so you could use the hint feature to automatically do a Live search on a helpful topic. Another slightly unusual feature is that Live Search Club users can earn points ("tickets") by playing the games and redeem them for a wide variety of prizes, including Zune MP3 players and Windows Vista...that's where the consumer profiting comes into play.

In my opinion, Live Search Club is a phenomenal idea! It simultaneously builds good will and brand awareness for Microsoft's web properties and gets people searching Live more because it is integrated with the games. The games are honestly fun, too, and they fit well with the growing trend of casual gaming as each game takes only a small amount of time to play -- at most 15 or 20 minutes, I'd estimate, and some games can be played in about 5 minutes or less. My favorite game by far is Flexicon while my nemesis thus far is Chicktionary...but honestly I like all the games at least a little bit. Yes, even Dingbats, the game that spits in your face for playing it by only rewarding you with 3 tickets after successfully completing a puzzle. It is possibly true that Microsoft is using the Club as a way to generate more searches, as this article alleges. Personally, I'd prefer if searches were only performed when I ask for a hint, because I almost never pay attention to the searches that show up after I input and check an answer...so much searching just slows the games down.

A few days ago, I redeemed some tickets for my first prize: a 256 MB Memorex travel drive. My prize supposedly will arrive in September, but I've yet to receive the promised confirmation email so I'm not exactly waiting for it with bated breath. What I'd really like is an XBox 360, but it actually requires more tickets to redeem than anyone has ever earned through the site according to the Live Search Club leaderboard...indeed, it requires more tickets than can be earned until more puzzles are added. Whether or not the Live Search Club will be my gateway to an XBox 360 remains to be seen, but I'll certainly update this blog to let everyone know if I receive my travel drive in September!