Microsoft Unveils Online Advertising Service

jwb4273 writes "Microsoft has released another weapon in its battle against Google. Steve Ballmer has announced today that Microsoft's web properties (MSN, Live, etc.) will no longer use Yahoo!'s advertising services, and will instead use Microsoft's new advertising platform 'adCenter'. For wanting to go in together with Yahoo, this seems like the wrong start for a good relationship."

Microsoft is like the Karl Rove of tech...

[TheNoxx]

The only way Microsoft has to promote their inferior product has been FUD campaigns and tons of self-promotion through marketing. They don't want any allies that could be potential rivals, and that includes Yahoo. Unless they intend to buy Yahoo (like they did with Bungie and Rare), they probably don't want to support a partner in a field they could dominate themselves for more profits. The only "allies" I've seen them interested in have been PC makers, and those are more like forced partnerships than friendly cooperations.

Go ahead, mod me down. You know I speak the truth.

Makes all sorts of sense.

[Rachel Lucid]

There's a difference between allowing people to do things with your software you'd rather them not (like looking up porn / google-smut), and actively appearing like you are endorsing such things (such as providing ad revenue for a porn site). One is passive endorsement, the other is proactive endorsement. It's like offering BitTorrent and looking the other way when it's used to rebroadcast American Idol episodes.

M$ says "me too"

[jet_silver]

If there is ever a sign that a company is losing its relevance, it's when it stops innovating and starts copying its successful rivals. All this story says is that M$ has lots of places to put ads, and they're going to do it. What better way to please customers can you imagine?

Ads in Office?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this about them wanting to put ads into Office? Unless they are planning on giving out a free version that has ads, I highly doubt people are going to like that one bit. Paying $400 for a program that displays ads is BS. I don't any company or person is going to deal with that.

Unless they are wanting to push most people to something else I don't think that will fly very well.

Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter

[mikesd81]

I have no problem with unobtrusive ads in searches or hotmail and what not. Howerver, I *DO* have a problem w/ them in Office which I may have shelled money out for. Or any mobile application I may have paid for. Ads are to generate money so you *don't* have to pay to subscribe. If you're gonna put ads in bought for programs, then just make it Open Source and I'll happily click on an ad or two.

In OFFICE?

[BrianH]

Oh, I can just imagine how well that's going to go over in our large site. How does MS expect to sell this to the corporate market? "Yes, MS Office is the most popular productivity suite in the world! And as an added bonus, we'll kill YOUR companies productivity by distracting all of your employees with tempting ads! Think about the boon to the economy! Instead of all those employees wasting time working for YOU, they can be promoting commerce and boosting the economy by spending their working hours shopping online!"

Even making it easy to disable wouldn't assuage many CTO's, because there is still a productivity loss as the IT guys disable the ads. It may be simple for one, but when you have thousands of installations, sometimes spread out over multiple locations, it's going to cost real money to fix.

The old adage "Cutting off your nose to spite your face" comes to mind here. They're going to anger the majority of their customers, just to make it look like they're "competing" with Google. MS really has fallen...they're transforming themselves from the largest software company in the world into freaking Doubleclick.

Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter

[dougman]

Not to nitpick, but TFA doesn't say anything about adCenter on your games. It says "xbox.com", not xbox.

TFA doesn't give much detail either, so I'll wait to see if it really shows up in Office. I'd be VERY surprised to see that happen. What I can imagine is a stripped down freebie version that has ads to get eyeballs and to keep folks from switching to OpenOffice.

Something weird...

[Anonymous Coward]

...just happened to me. I tend to root for the underdog... SO WHY AM I CHEERING FOR MICROSOFT?!?!?! The cognitive dissonance is astounding.

wth are you talking about?

[jasonhamilton]

Uhhhh. How about you do some research about MS' history, then get back to us on their ability to innovate.