MSN is a group of Internet services provided by Microsoft. Initially released by Microsoft on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of Windows 95, the selection of services has since expanded greatly. The Hotmail webmail service was amongst the first, followed by the instantaneous messenger service MSN Messenger. Recently, MSN has launched many of its new services, to compete with rivals (Google & Yahoo); new services include MSN Virtual Earth, Desktop Search, Microsoft adCenter and a customizable search engine.

Microsoft adCenter

Microsoft adCenter (beta version) launched on May 4, 2006 in the U.S. and advertisers can now advertise on MSN Search and Windows Live Search. Microsoft adCenter is the division of the Microsoft Network (MSN) responsible for MSN's advertising services.

How does search advertising work?

• Pay only when people click your ads.
• Set your own price per click.
• See when your clicks lead to sales.
• Target your ads to the times, places, and customers you want the most.
• Use built-in tools to get keyword ideas, audience information, and detailed reports on your ads.

Microsoft earlier launched adCenter in Singapore and France, and for the past nine months it has run a pilot program in the U.S. with 6,000 customers. AdCenter is the arm of MSN accountable for its advertising services. Microsoft invited Advertiser’s to access AdCenter's APIs. Yahoo uses the same invitation model with its Yahoo Search Marketing service, whereas Google AdWords charges advertisers for access. 

Large number of companies, including eBay, are currently testing AdCenter APIs in the UK. Other companies will be invited to register their interest when the UK service is launched in full at the end of 2006. 

In addition to offering highly granular control over ad placement, Microsoft also provides the following tools:

• Site Analyzer assists advertisers by suggesting keywords based on the content of their Web site rather than on another keyword.
• Audience Profiler provides advertisers with an expected profile of those customers most likely to search for specific keywords.
• Cost Estimator helps advertisers remain within their budget by estimating rank, traffic and cost per month per keyword.
• Campaign Optimization allows advertisers to respond quickly and decisively throughout the campaign to easily refine budget allocations and keywords as well as apply targeting filters that make geographic, demographic and "dayparting" (dividing the broadcast day into parts targeted at specific audiences) distinctions.
• Post Sales Audience Intelligence & Reporting provides advertisers with detailed reports on campaign performance and audiences reached including click-through rate, estimated position and spending levels.

Microsoft adCenter currently provides pay per click advertisements. AdCenter is Microsoft's endeavor to gain a bigger portion of the lucrative online advertising market.

And the full transcript at
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/steve/2006/05-04MSNStrategicAccount.mspx

Until the beginning of 2006, all of the ads displayed on the MSN search engine were supplied by Overture (and later Yahoo!). MSN collected a portion of the ad revenue in return for displaying Yahoo!'s ads on its search engine.

As the AdCenter was phased in, MSN search displayed Yahoo! and Microsoft adCenter ads in its search results. As of June 2006, the deal between Yahoo! and Microsoft has expired and Microsoft is exhibiting only ads from adCenter.

Snapshots of featured provided by Microsoft AdCenter

(The search advertising buying interface provides innovative animated charts providing information such as the demographic make-up of those seeing and clicking on ads...)

Advertisers will also be able to see their advertisements appearing across a number of MSN & Microsoft services in the future, including Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Spaces, Windows Live Safety Center, Windows Live for Mobile, Office Live and Office Online, and the Xbox® Web site Xbox.com.

 Advertising has become a major revenue source for Microsoft (for google and yahoo too). The top three search engines will concentrate on advertising to generate their revenues or profits

Loopholes in Microsoft AdCenter

1. The service did not or probably still doesn't support Firefox and Mac users

(Microsoft adCenter is currently not compatible with certain web browsers such as Safari, Firefox, and the latest Internet Explorer Beta (IE7).)

1. When copying and pasting keywords into campaign, advertiser cannot paste more than 100 keywords at once.
2. Huge delays in reporting.
3. One cannot Mass change the "Match-Type" on keywords... user have to manually check a box against each keyword. This can be time-consuming, especially if user has 100's or even 1000's of keywords.
4. The system can be very slow... definitely not recommended for Dial-up users.
5. No Campaign-level excluded keywords can be entered. There's also a limit on the amount of excluded keywords you can use per order.
6. AdCenter customer support is very bad.

MSN search is being continuously preferred over Google and Yahoo owing to the unsatisfactory  organic listings in the two. With MSN venturing into its own Pay-Per-Click model, for how long will the organic results in MSN remain relevant. Will MSN, like its counterparts in search also yield to the lucrative industry  of paid search and manipulate organic listings to increase the revenue from paid listings?? Or will MSN, be the new leader in search providing relevant organic results at the same time giving an option of paid Ads to the user to chose from………….