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MSN Launches Pay-Per-Click Search Ads
San writes "ZDNet is reporting that MSN has launched its first paid-search advertising application. The system will first be launched in Singapore and will be followed by France in September and a pilot run in the United States in October."
Um....Why? Isn't this form of ads pretty much dead? I mean, the last time I clicked on a Slashdot ad was.....never!
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
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This sound like a unpleasant invasion of privacy.h nology/2002210022_microsoftads17.html/news article from the Seattle Times,
According to http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstec
"AdCenter uses information from customers who registered for services such as Hotmail or who tailored the MSN home page to their interests. It supplements that with data purchased from the Experian credit bureau."
They announced this in March and said that it would begin testing phase "within six months." For you math whizzes out there, that means they finally released a project on time!
Do marketing executive brains are in the same universe???
At first glance, this would appear to be a direct copy of Google's AdWords style keyword bidding on search result pages. However, whats more suspicious is how information on search users is being used to target the ads. If they choose to mine the profile data available to them through MSN passport (and this seems to be in line with their intentions, given that age and gender are already available to advertisers), Microsoft could try to exploit people's personal information to gain a targetting advantage over Google (at the expense of user's privacy..)
Business Voyeur
Ok, so one of the weapons Ballmer intends to use to cut off Google's oxygen supply os a kind of "MSN AdSense".
MSN is just terrible. A while ago, I searched for "asp.net". 3 results and 10 ads. Nothing is better then Google.
Waik, http://waik.sourceforge.net
What innovation! Soon everyone will be jumping on the bandwagon.
We hear this just after Ballmer vows to destroy Google.... ?
Windows 98... "Look Johnny, long filenames" (Macintosh had been there, done that)
M$IE7 Beta... "Look Johnny, Tabbed Browsers" (FireFox had been there, done that)
MSN AdCenter... "Look Johnny, Pay per click advertising" (Google had been there, done that)
What further amazes me is that anything M$ does is still news. Why are the masses constantly amazed by the fact that M$ does not have to form independent thoughts and simply hijack everyone elses. Why not take that black hole of thought hovering over Redmond and channel it into something useful.
A Secure Microsoft Product "Look Johnny, A Secure M$ Product...Make a Wish"
Oh my god! We are done for!
Bitch, I just ran out of milk! I blame you and your apathy!
-If God wanted people to be better than me, he would have made them that way.
Is it just me or do the countries chosen for the launch seem kind of strange. I mean France...
:(){
Serious, we shouldn't expect anything creative out of microsoft. Look at what their interns do:2 02005%20v2%20(NTSC).wmv
http://internz.org/Video2005/ByeByeBye%20Internz%
Doesn't this just epitomize them? Always one step behind!
"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google"
With this move now Microsoft and Google have almost the same features. But i still hate Microsoft.. Ah!, you analyst didnt see that comin' bill did they?!
//WR
Hey, it could have been worse, the claria deal could have went through, and they could have gotten their spydata that way and unclassified claria from their antispyware app.
What am I saying, what do I care, I don't use windows. ClamAV can handle the sendmail.
I blame MS because I saw Stebe Balmer throwing milk jugs in the vicinity of your house earlier! (as well as chairs, voodoo dolls that look suspiciously like certain Google execs, etc)
Google agreed to issue 2.7 million shares (~$250 million) of Class A common stock to Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, Calif. In turn, Yahoo dropped its lawsuit against Google and issued a "fully paid, perpetual license" to Overture patents.
I guess Microsoft thinks its open season on Yahoo! patents now... I hope Microsoft's legal team is ready to open the checkbook as I doubt the two Standford search engines (Yahoo and Google) will allow Microsoft to get in on the action for free!
I can't wait for the next round of Steve Ballmer vids.
MS is scared to death over google.
My guess is they are trying to take over their market or they will use monopolistic pressures to "cut off Google's air supply". Certainly that scenario is a classic Microsoft tactic.
Especially after reading yesterday's news about Balmer throwing a chair because someone left to join google. That is just scary.
http://saveie6.com/
"Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we can not resembel"- Dr. Samual Johnson
And why would I want to use it?
.... What? Google has it already!
I want real reasons and none of that "better experience" crap. Stuff such as "Better Payouts", "less ads about spyware", "better optimized displaying technique" or any feature that would allow more liberty (Read AdSense's TOS carefully, you'll see what I mean)
And finnaly, I would want a username that goes by the name of "MSNGuy" to reply to this!
The hip way to get your IP. No ads, ever.
Wouldn't someone have to use M$ search?
My start up page, at home or work, Windows or Linux, is always Google. On Firefox.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
MS-BASIC... BASIC ported to 8080.
MS-DOS... CP/M-86 with IBM patches.
Xenix... Unix ported to 8086
Windows... Oh, a GUI.
Windows NT... VMS with a GUI
The list goes on.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Balan noted that the application helps to "level the playing field" for small and medium-sized businesses
Because nobody knows the "level playing field" concept like Microsoft!
Come to think of it, it could be good for my little company to watch two 600-lb. gorillas duke it out for primacy, while we sneak up from behind and nibble at their market share.
On the first machines I worked with (Burroughs B3700, which went out of production in 1976) the operating system (MCP) only allowed 6-character filenames, upper-case only please. After that, Honeywell's GCOS allowed (IIRC) 64-character filenames, and when I eventually got to play with PC-DOS, it was a bit of a shock to find myself stuck with the 8.3 convention.
"Clearly you've never been to Singapore." -Captain Jack Sparrow. Mod me down for not checking accuracy.
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
all those moaning about how it's an invasion of privacy must note that when they agreed to that .net passport, they waived all rights in perpetuity... they allowed Microsoft & their "partners" to do whatever they want with the data... and it looks like their partners include anyone who pays for an MSN Keyword... and that could be anyone
I think the EU will have some serious concerns over this as it appears to be a primae facie breach of the Data Protection requirements which all EU contries have signed up to. And last time I looked, Microsoft have offices AND customers in the EU and are subject to them.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Bill Gates began dreaming of "pay-per-click" the first time he saw a mouse in action.
Adsense and their gmail ads. Still only if you have your google cookie set.
...you are right they are not innovative! Grounds for a google counter sue for their advertising style? pteesh.
However this microsoft ploy is what one reader 'predicted', if microsoft offer a 'killer' ad program (lets face it, it isn't a sodding technical marvel) with extra data and sod, and then basically give all the money to the people who operate it (read cheap advertising and high payouts) then they will crush google.
Except they will have to imitate google, and perhaps their arrogance (using credit data) has gone against them.
I for one don't block adsense frames, because I find it interesting to see who can get ads on certain pages.
That is how unobstrusive it is. I choose what I watch, and sod the advertisers, I would rather a cheap and nasty ad free internet than a cheap and nasty adfull internet (which we have now).
I will adblock any flash or video ads that encumber my screen, and no visit websites that have 'interval' ign style ads. 'skip this ad'
'Microsoft' have no class, is a statement being passed around by in the hyperswill - and I think this offering, timely after the whole 'I will bury google' release, will show that despite a mountain of cash, they will not be able to topple google.
Internet has shown that inertia is enough of a force with people to let even shit sites (ebay) win through. Google have been pushing for this, and probably on day 1 they knew this would happen, and worked out their game plan.
Microsoft are such lazy uncoordinated bastards, they sit and wait too much, with worked in googles favour.
They are spending all their time on faux blog sites, shitty 'Microsoft are cute and fun' reaching out to developers and crap. Please develop for our platform only, tie in etc.
Now most download sites and 'open' downloads are for linux, 3 years ago it was windows software, and someone please bring it to linux, and now it is 'Windows Version - someone managed to get this to compile, it is 3 versions old, but good luck'.
File in Java (which Microsoft had a game planon how to trash - and failed) and you see where this is going.
One final point fo rpeople who say Microsoft don't innovate:
According to Eva Balan, MSN's international marketing manager for MSN adCenter, advertisers pay a one-time subscription fee of S$5 (US$3) for MSN Keywords. For each keyword, they bid a minimum of S$0.10 and pay for the number of times search users click on their advertisements, which appear as sponsored links alongside search results. The placement of the links will depend on the bid price, click-through rate as well as the types of user profiles captured by the system. [why is this bold not italic? I hate reading italic on screen]
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http://www.adcmedia.com/
:: OR is that person has just refinanced his house, o rmaxed out credit cards, or is a gambler or has lots of finance, will they hit ads that target them with refinancing, credit cards, and online gambling.
Devils advocate - traditionally in advertising - noone knows what works, so targetted may work, at the end of the day:
Someone looking at a gardening site - will they buy into ads selling 'gardening things' or things related to that aricle (it doesn't always work)
It is this crowd of 'financials' that microsoft look to be targetting, and I think that this will lead to people calling microsoft ads 'mortgage ads' or 'gambling ads'.
I wonder if M$ will succumb to the click-fraud crowd.
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Look, in the case of MSN they can tie every word of every email they get to the fact that you are male, live in a certain location, and so on and so forth (based on what you tell them in the profile). Furthermore they know something of other sites you frequent, if you use Passport to reach them. So for instance if I have the word "car" in an email I may get an ad for a particular brand of cleaner different than the one I normally purchase at a car-cleaning site I frequent that also uses Passport. I'm sure they are not going this far yet but it's easy enough to rig up they way they have things.
In the case of Google, they are looking at one email and what it holds. They don't know if I'm human much less male. They don't know I just bought polisher at Joes Auto Shack last week. They just put up a few ads related to cars and consider themselves done.
An automated service that looks at each email I read and does something imperminent based on a keyword? OK by me.
A service that can estimate when I'm out of any given fluid based on a vast network of interconnected sites tracking what I buy? Pass the tinfoil please!
The difference is that Google is collecting statistics in aggragate (400 out of 10k people clicked on this link when "car" was a keyword) whereas Microsoft can keep track at an individual level.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Anyone found one of these adverts yet? I'd like to block them before I ever see one, if possible.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
who the hell would pay for ad's i dont even want to see the ones that are on there allready and between the adware and spyware whod want em anyway
Hey, I have a patent on that one!
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