This past week Yahoo rolled out a test campaign in which they emailed 5% of their users to see if they would be incentivized to use search. See the News.com story for facts and the Threadwatch discussion for some perspectives.

The campaign was greeted with much skepticism, such as this one, which more or less says the idea is weak. Yahoo employee and blogger Jeremy Zawodny responded, noting that search is a commodity, and such practices are common in commodity businesses:

When you're in a commodity business, you need to offer people a reason to choose you and stick with your service. They need something that helps to break the tie in their head. Choosing between two or more nearly indistinguishable services is always hard.

You might not think that web search is a commodity service, but I've seen public and private data that suggests we're headed that way. It was only a matter of time, right?

As search becomes commoditized, it needs to be thought of as a tool that feeds other value chains. Yahoo offering discounts/incentives for its other services (like Yahoo music, or banner-free Yahoo mail) to active searchers is one such way this could be done. Is it the best? Does it breed user loyalty and increase Yahoo's mindshare of users? Perhaps, but I'm starting to think there might be better ways. For instance, if Yahoo were able to incentivize the services of other businesses instead of just its own services, it would be enriching its economy a lot more, and may be able to strengthen relationships with businesses and users alike if such a campaign were executed properly.

Ultimately, though, I don't think this boils down to a simple value chain analysis. I think the issue is far more intuitive: if you're going to incentivize people, do so in a way that enriches your relationship with them. Because in today's environment, the value of your relationships is really your most prized asset.

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