MSN Search and adCenter Will Improve
Posted in Search Marketing by jspirko on May 22nd, 2006 
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. He laid out three key areas that are strong indicators of the future for Microsoft adCenter and their search engine.
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Content - The MSN portal is very useful and does a good job of creating returning visitors, and MSN is constantly investing to make it even better. It’s has a lot of content, some that’s created specifically for Microsoft, some that’s offered through partnerships with other sites, and still other content that’s user generated.
These are all issues we have raised 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
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