The Microsoft adCenter Code Blog

I just read and interesting article at MediaPost.  The article was titled Why MSN Will Move Up and was a pretty good read.  Here are some interesting points made by the author, Bill Wise.

1.  Ad Targeting - MSNs ad targeting has gotten a lot of press but many are quick to point out that the traffic at MSN is still a lot less then Google and Yahoo meaning less traffic for advertisers to buy.  However, with targeting advertisers get better results so even if traffic does not go up a tremendous ammount in time MSN should be able to sell most of its inventory at a premium because it will convert better.

2.  Money -  If you can’t win buy your victory.  While that may not work well in some areas of life in business it is a proven method.  Microsoft spent more on R&D last year then Googles gross revenues!  That says something about their buying and development power.

3.  Content -  The MSN portal is very useful and does a good job of creating sticky visitors, and MSN is constantly investing to make it even better. It’s got lots of content–some that’s created specifically for MSN, some that’s offered via partnerships with other sites, and still other content that’s user-generated. That content features the MSN searchbar–which drives searchers eyeballs to adCenter ads.

These are all issues we have raised here before at “The adCenter Code”  but the author sheds some new insite on their impact.  You may want to read the full article.

He also touched on the concept of integrating adCenter with Xbox but I think it is a bigger deal then that.

WPF/E, or Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere is positioned to play for dominance in the RIA market. They’re making sure that developers who build applications on WPF can deploy those applications almost anywhere, on any device or OS. Similarly, the Flash Player has rebranded itself since the dark days of skip intro buttons and has become a full fledged development environment with players that will be put on everything from PlayStation Portables to regular desktop computers. Building an RIA and being able to deploy that RIA on a PSP is a compelling notion. Imagine being able to “link” your PSP to your XBox360 and your computer. It opens up the living room in exciting ways.  It will also open up a totaly new advertising opportunity and the ability to begin building demographic data based on users view habits that Nielson can only dream of,

~ Jack

Microsoft really appears to be taking the search marketing world seriously in an effort to ensure it can effectively compete with Google and Yahoo. Late last year Google released Google Analytics and if you have been lucky enough to get a copy (the program has a waiting list) you know it is an excellent way to view you web site data and metrics. Google rolled out this service after purching Urchin Software who was of course in the web site tracking business.

Microsoft has followed suit by announcing a “significant investment” in DeepMetrix, a privately held Canadian company that develops web analytics and business intelligence tools for online marketers and publishers.

Having used DeepMetrix products in the past I can state they are very good and quite capable or doing a few things even better then the Urchin Based Google Analytics. Smart marketers tend to use more then one tracking software though and I hope soon to be able to look at stats side by side from what ever MSN rolls out along side Google Stats. The more views into your data the better.

I would say based on past timelines we should expect to see some level of an Microsoft Stats product by fall of this year but that is just my guess. There are two key questions we will be waiting to have MS answer.

1. Will this product be like Google Analytics and be available to anyone not just people that purchase advertising?

and

2. Will Microsoft do a better job of allocation of resources so they can open the product to everyone and not have a closed waiting list? Right now the average wait to get an Analytics Invation from Google is several month.

For those answers we will have to wait. The real question is when will Yahoo snap to needing a good analytics platform?

Jack Spirko

That’s the news today as Microsoft has taken adCenter live and opened it to all commers they have also changed the name. Visitors to our blog my note that we have followed suit changing our name from “The MSN adCenter Code Blog” to “The Microsoft adCenter Code Blog”.

So what does this big change mean? Not that much, oh Microsoft is announcing a lot with the change such as…

• Ads Being Displayed on MS Live Mail
• Ads on Office Live
• Ads on Office Online
• Ads on Windows Live
• Ads on the Safety Center and of course
• Ads on the Xbox

None of this is really all that new we have reported on it quite a bit in specualtion as to where MSN was headed with its ad program. I think the name change is just meant to give a nice buzz to the new ad program which has been in the works and clearly what was comming for a very long time.

The bigger news is still the Forbes Article about a possible merger or partnership with Yahoo but this seems to be what everyone is talking about anyway. It is going to be interesting to see how much revenue can be created with this new program and opening up these additional traffic channels to Microsoft adCenter advertisers and how it will effect or impact the timing of the release of Microsoft Content Ads which will be the Google adWords / Yahoo Publisher competitior due out from the big MS later this year,
~ Jack

On April 7 I posted Could Microsoft By Yahoo? - 7 Reasons It Could Happen I was pretty clear that it was just my theory and 100% speculation to boot. Now today we seem to have a second (more informed) source confiming that my prediction is not only possible but that talks have been going on for more then a year.

Who is this second source? Another blogger? Nope the source is Forbes.com in their story Microsoft, Yahoo! In Possible Partnership Talks.

One of my key points in my orginal article was that Yahoo and Microsoft both bought large ammounts of land to develop just down the street from each other in Rural Quincy Washington (hundreds of miles from any existing point of presense for either company). I stated in fact,

“The fact is either the city of Quincy has one of the best public relations departments in the world that just landed two of the biggest global companies at the same time solely on their ability or the two companies have something going on behind closed doors. You tell me which one seems more likely“.

If Forbes or another source can in time fully confirm these talks I think perhaps that indeed this partnership talk may have driven the decision of the two giants to both select the same tiny small town for major development.

As we look into the future of search mergers and acquisitions are going to become a common thing that drives growth of market presense. Yet for the second and third largest players to have any type of merger will have a massive long term effect on the market.
~ Jack Spirko