@ComanderPam: I'd think of it like gas points, credit card rewards or frequent flyer miles. That is, you're an idiot if you just use the service to gain the points.

However, if you just switch to using Scour instead of Google, etc., you search regularly (I reckon I do 50-75 searches per day at work), and you don't mind leaving a short comment after each search, it's worth it and essentially free money with very little extra overhead (assuming they pay up of course...)

aphexbr

I'm trying it right now and I dont think it works right in Firefox either (3).

ComanderPam

@ComanderPam: I just did the same math. 1625 comments later, and you have $25 to spend toward your carpal tunnel treatment!

Darren W.

So we have to search 1625 times and leave a comment every time in order to get $25... That seems like a little much.

ComanderPam

I did the math using my "total Google web searches" from Web History. It would take me about 3 months if I leave a comment every time I search.

Ortzinator

@azntg: And for that reason, I'd use my designated spam catching sign up for this sort of thing address.

waffles

Sorry for being lazy, but what else are we sacrificing for the chance of winning a $25 Visa gift card? Don't feel like going to the website and finding out.

Getting ourselves entered in a spam list? Consenting to endless marketing? There almost always is some fine print catch to these things.

azntg

I think you don't have to comment. Just click up or down thumb and that's it. I'll try it for a week or so and see how it turns out.

HChKn

@azntg: I think it's just one of those things where you just get rewards just going about doing your normal everyday thing. Like what aphebxr said, think of it like gas points, cc rewards, etc.

And like most of these things, if you'd do this, best to use an alternate e-mail than primary to keep the spam down. :)

chareverie

I signed up. What do I have to loose?
There's a privacy policy when you sign up.

WEGGLES90

OK, I've actually looked at the site and it'll be useless to me. The payments are only to North American users. This means that not only can I not gain anything by using it compared to Google, but any results will inevitably have an American cultural bias.

So, good luck to you guys over the pond, but it'll be pointless for me to try...

aphexbr

It makes me long for the days when Blingo was useable. When they used Google for their backend, everyone I knew used them and I won all sorts of prizes (either myself or via their pyramid-ish mechanism). Now that they have a Yahoo! backend, nobody wants to use them (including me).

It sounds like Scour sucks, too. BAH.

mizmoose

Seems there's untold teething problems on this - cached searches going missing, +/- votes timing out, not being able to retrieve your points balance... I'll give it a couple of days until the initial traffic peak from here has died down.

pbarrett

@Rose: Here it is: [www.scour.com]

OX4

After reading their terms it looks like they need your mailing address, and I assume they'll track what you buy with the Visa gift card. Here's how I think of these things: how much would I pay so that I could guarantee my privacy and not be inundated with spam or junk mail from at least one company and its partners? Probably more than $25.

OX4

I haven't been able to find a privacy policy on their site. Has anyone else?

It's not the potential spam that bothers me (easily controlled with a spam-mail account), it's the idea that this company might sell my searches...

Rose

btw people you get points for just searching, no need to do anything extra

lightstalker

Why does it proxy the webpage when you click the link? This seems fishy to me.

The site is slow and they keep prompting me to download their toolbar. Spyware anyone?

/pass

Boomstick

I'm up to 60 points just by testing it (just searching - no voting or comments).

Ultimately a search engine's success is based on it's relevant search results and not marketing efforts. Scour results are very good but in my testing not as relevant as Google.

My take is that Scour takes the most relevant results from the Big 3 then ranks by most keyword-rich URLs.

Major players in my industry with non-keyword FirstName-LastName.com or CorporateName.com domain names don't rank well in Scour.

IfThenElvis

This concept was introduced to the mainstream about 10 years as "www.iwon.com".

ticklemeozmo

You get 200 pts for inviting a friend when you sign up and 100 pts for d/l their toolbar. I also think they give you 50pts for signing up. I had 350 pts already in my account for just do those 3 things!

Now I just need to earn another 6150pts!!! (only 1538 searches, with votes and comments)

closeupman

Well, this is just great, for the corporate marketing pirates who could then collect and sell information about all your searches.

johnleeke

I cannot get my registration processed.

It is the dual edged gift of Lifehacker. You give information, and then the masses kill the site with an unintentional DDoS attack. Amazing.

PotKettleBlack

I'm not really interested in payout, but voting on search results is great, and if a lot of people use it, it would be great. Of course, what's stopping me from signing up million times and voting for my scam/linkfarm?

blis

@ticklemeozmo:
And your point is?

closeupman

whats to stop the triads mass-subscribing and botting the tits off the server with reverse baitcalls over a fiber proxy at midnight?

Tactical-Incineration-Development

@WEGGLES90: lose

Tactical-Incineration-Development

@Boomstick:
It proxies them because at the bottom it has a little comment/rating bar for you :)

@Tactical-Incineration-Development: Whoops... the Scour toolbar doesn't have a spell checker :P

WEGGLES90

There seems to be a cap on the amount of points you can get in one day. I'm currently at 500 and it won't let me get higher.

eddiesmile

@eddiesmile: that sucks, it would take me a whole week to get 25 bucks.

ubuntugamer

@thefunkdoc: Its quite simple, actually. Just don't search for "How to build a Hydrogen Bomb" or "Black Market Kidney Vendor" and you'll be fine, hotshot.

ceslami

great. im glad to know everyone is glad to sell their right to privacy for a "LET'S HEAR IT AUDIENCE,." , $25 bucks. You need to open your eyes.

thefunkdoc

looks like it could take forever, this is sorta pointless.

Internet-TV

read what lifehacker wrote "its more than you normally get for searching" don't think of it as work just think of it as if it were google

revolution-inc

Are you people fucking serious? No one is concerned about this type of blatant mal-ware invasion? Orwell had the future nailed down to every detail but one - when Big Brother arose, it wasn't due to his awesome power - it was because we had already bought the cameras ourselves.

dasverlangen

I have around 18k searches on google history...only if i had gotten 4 points for each...

paperless

I haven't tried the site out yet, but who cares about the money? Finally an easy way to help improve search results. We sure need it!

DaveRod

@dasverlangen: It may be malware, but at least we're getting paid 0.0038 pennies per search!

RedHotSwami

If anyone is thinking about joining and wants to be nice, they'd make me very happy at no cost to themselves by using the following referral link: [scour.com]

mothis

Has anyone tried this before or is some type of scam? I don't see how they'd give you a $25 gift card just by searching. You know how many people do this on a daily basis? It does look pretty simple. Just type in different things you want to search and like simple sites you regularly visit like Lifehacker and earn quick points.

Baseball4Life