Is Microsoft Partnering with Bollywood?

Recently, I watched a new Bollywood movie “Raaz – The Mystery Continues” (wiki link) and a particular scene from this movie caught my attention.

In the scene, Emraan Hashmi, the lead actor, performs an online search while looking for some information. Unlike the Hollywood smarties, who might have used Google search instead, our desi hero uses Microsoft’s Live search. You can see the following screenshot (at 57 mins 02 secs) captured from the movie below:

(click on image to enlarge it)

As you can notice from the URL highlighted in the above screenshot, he uses Live search with cashback. Cashback search results show only products and not information from the web unlike normal search engines.

Now it’s hard to believe that while shooting for a film, the actor wanted to earn some cashback by using the live search. Looks like Microsoft paid some bucks to the movie producer to keep Google out of the scene.

This is not a new trend in Bollywood movies. In the past, many Bollywood movies have exclusively showcased many sponsored products. The only thing that surprised me was  the way Live search has been blended into the scene. It looks completely natural.

If you have more time to kill, just check search results for query, “tum ashudh ho – david cooper”, from Live Cashback search, normal Live search and Google. 🙂

Related: 5 Best Torrent Search Engine