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MSN Takes on Google AdWords
kevmo writes "CNET News.com reports that Microsoft's MSN unit launched its own paid-search advertising program in France and said it plans to begin testing the system in the United States next month. FTA: "The system competes with Google's AdWords program and will eventually replace a keyword-based advertising program MSN contracts out to Yahoo. It has a simple user interface and is notable for its use of customer profiling, taking advantage of the data MSN gathers from its more than 9 million subscribers.""
What's in it for me to switch to MSN's?
You know, I am annoyed by the onslaught of Google articles on here, but maybe there are so many articles because they are great innovators. Google doesn't necessarally makes new software, but take an old idea and make it much better, or work in a different way that may or may not be more efficient.
People complain about Google possibly turning into another Microsoft, but I say that may not be a bad thing. Two giants with totally different ideas about engineering, research and design are now trying to grab a hold onto the same markets. There are similarities too; both companies to a lot of live testing with their consumers.
My revenue on google Adwords hasn't been all that great, so at least now if I desired, I could try a different option from a major provider. I like this and I'd hope to see more healthy competition between Google and Microsoft.
on linux/solaris/non-Windows non-IIS webservers? are they implemented as active-x's so they'd only work in IE?
I think it's safe to say that Google has firmly cornered this particular market. Microsoft has had success playing the catch-up game in the past, but I think this time the lag is going to cost them.
Socialism: A feeling of discontent and resentment caused by a desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
I have an adwords account as well, one of the possibilities might be that the MSN market would generate more revenue? Consider that the users who use Google might be smarter than the ones on MSN due to the fact that those people who don't know how to change the default homepage after installing windows might be a viable market to advertise to :)
I have Adsense on my small site and what is frustrating for me isn't the earnings but the lack of consistency. Sometimes I'll have one click that pays more than the 15 clicks the day before. It is very hit or miss with Google. I'd love to see MSN provide a more consistent income stream or at least something I can understand. I see how people bid on the ads and so they're clearly going to have different earnings, but the disparity between them really astounds me. Just my $0.02.
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It has a simple user interface and is notable for its use of customer profiling, taking advantage of the data MSN gathers from its more than 9 million subscribers.
.NET Passports will have the data taken from the passports in order to serve more relevant ads? If so, does this mean that web site owners will have the ability to look and see what data the .NET Passports hold?
Does this mean that people logged into their
Issuer:
CN = Microsoft Secure Server Authority
DC = redmond
DC = corp
DC = microsoft
DC = com
MS needs to be put in their place, and to a small degree Google has been doing that. It will be interesting to see for how long Google can withstand MS's onslaught.
Ignore Alien Orders
None of their developer pages have Verisign certs. I guess they don't want to pay the piper either.
At first, you needed an invite to get GMail, didn't you? And these days, everyone has an invite. Maybe MSN is doing the same sort of thing: making it invite-only in the beginning to make it seem like it's the new cool thing, then giving everyone so many invites that it effectively becomes public. Just my 2 cents, though.
Maybe I don't pay enough attention to their various projects but it seems to me that Google has been churning out complex projects at, for a large development company, breakneck speed.
Even if most of those projects are still in Beta, all the ones I've tried are very functional and stable. While there are other companies who have similar products or projects that are more functional or establised, Google's ability and flexibility should have them all scrambling to innovate or to defend their market share.
Funny thing is, I've only become aware of a lot of these established competitors BECAUSE of Google's projects. If it weren't for Google Desktop search, I may never have heard of Copernic - which is a pretty darned good program.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Adwords used to be a great thing for small-time advertisers and that's precisely the reason that myself and many other small advertisers like me used adwords. I could reach thousands on a budget of less than $100 a day.
.20 on many of my keywords. Not anymore. I can't afford $5-10 a click so I cancelled my adwords campaigns. Judging by some of the angry threads at webmaster world I'm guessing that there's hundreds of others out there like me. Maybe Google just needs something to show for thier inflated stock price.
Google changed their minimum-bid policy and now I have to end up paying $10 a click for some keywords and no less than $1 to get on the first result page for others. I used to get up near the top for less than
If MSN can offer a decent amount of quality traffic for a good CPC I'll jump all over it.
If you're so averse to anonymous profiling, you should probably stop shopping at Amazon. And your local grocery store. And Wal-Mart. And countless other retailers who collect anonymous usage data or match your credit card number to private databases to find out more about you.
To be honest, I don't mind demographic targeting as long as it's anonymous. I don't mind getting ads for Playstations instead of Barbies. And I don't mind it when Amazon suggests that I buy things targeted to my shopping profile. We're not all going to be mindless drones in the future, numbed to our corporate overlords. We're just going to be more jaded in the face of ever more sophisticated targeting.
I've always wondered why Google's black box approach to AdSense didn't tip off people's evil-meter. That sort of opacity would never in a million years be tolerated from Microsoft, especially when it comes to money.
It may just be that there's no real competition, so they can take advantage of their mono...uhh...I mean, "reap the benefits of their innovation".
Well as much as MS bashing is warranted at times, the above post is mindless irrational barrage.