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Microsoft

MSN Takes on Google AdWords 156

Posted by CmdrTaco from the game-is-on dept.
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.""
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MSN Takes on Google AdWords More

MSN Takes on Google AdWords

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  • I use AdWords on a few websites... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Iphtashu Fitz ( 263795 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:18AM (#13658036)
    What's in it for me to switch to MSN's?
    • What's in it for me to switch to MSN's?

      Market penetration?

      (before the flaming starts, it's a joke.)

      • You may be joking but, it is a logical fact that the people that use MSN do [may] not use Google \wedge people that do not use MSN [may] use google.

        So whats in it for GP, just to increase the number of people that sees his add, and I think the people that sees MSN adds will be what we call Joe Sixpack... so it may be a "computer literate" population, it is up to GP to exploit that.

    • Re:I use AdWords on a few websites... (Score:5, Funny)

      by lucabrasi999 ( 585141 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:28AM (#13658116) Journal
      What's in it for me to switch to MSN's?

      Quality and Security.

      • How is there any greater quality in switching to MSN? I can see that being the archetypal megacorp it has a lot of data to use, but not really as much as Google. Google know what people search for. :) And besides. I'd much rather Google get a cut of my money than M$. :P
    • The sheer pleasure of working with Microsoft, instead of Google.

      In short, run Forrest, run!

    • Re:I use AdWords on a few websites... (Score:5, Informative)

      by ThaFooz ( 900535 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:53AM (#13658296)
      I use AdWords on a few websites... What's in it for me to switch to MSN's?

      Well, I'm unsure if you mean you advertise on a few websites or put ads on your your own websites for revenue. But, I've done a lot of work in the industry so here goes:

      Google and Yahoo have a roughly equal share of the keyword-based advertising market (roughly 45% a piece), and most of the traffic comes from their own search engines, not their content network. The launch of MSN's program will imediatley cut into Yahoo's share (as current MSN ads are contracted to them), not Google's. It's hard to predict just how much though - Microsoft's search engine is less popular with a smaller index (and technicaly inferior IMHO), but Microsfot is pushing it pretty hard, and they own a fair number of hugely popular sites (MSNBC, Hotmail, ect). If you're targeting a specific demographic or website owned by MS, you'll have to consider them. But I don't see the major distributions out there flocking to an unproven system by a fairly new player to the search industry.

      Between Google and Yahoo, I don't see overall differences in advertiser/advertisee ROI, but the two systems work slightly differently and could be quite different to a smaller operation. Where you place in Yahoo is based on how much you're willing to spend, where placement in Google is determined by a combination of the traffic you generate and your bid.

      Bottom line, if you're only toying with AdWords at the moment, I wouldn't bother with MSN until you've experimented with Yahoo.

    • Re:I use AdWords on a few websites... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mat1t ( 772346 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:54AM (#13658308) Homepage
      Surely you don't want to switch, you want to use both! Thereby increasing the amount of adverts your product has! :)
    • Not much. Here in the UK MSN are having difficulty getting their own staff to use MSN seardh instead of Google.
    • But nevertheless and in spite of the evidence
      I am still widely considered to be
      A genius in France, a genius in France, a genius in France

  • France? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bugbeak ( 711163 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:18AM (#13658040)
    Not to try to inflame any French /.tter, and I don't know much about the French, but wouldn't there be a significant difference between how the French or Americans surf? Like the kinds of stuff they look for, etc.

    Just wondering why MS would test-run in France instead of some fixed part of the US.

    • Re:France? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by boaworm ( 180781 )
      Why would it be a "significant difference" ?

      Their everyday strolling is probably very much alike (except for the spelling that is)
      • actually grandparent is right. for anglophobic french people, the web is very different from what you and I know (there missing about 90% of it)

      • Re:France? (Score:3, Funny)

        by foniksonik ( 573572 )
        I would imagine that they probably look up things like Wine, Cheese, syphillis and Kylie Minogue whereas Americans are more prone to Pepsi, cheese, porn and Jessica Alba... ;-p pretty significant difference if you think about the implied cultures.

        OF course we have cheese in common but in France it's capitalized, cause in America cheese is something that comes in a can.

        • Re:France? (Score:3, Funny)

          by Nf1nk ( 443791 )
          Point of intrest. Mosted canned cheeses (yum) are generaly spelled cheez or some other marketing spelling, because there may be no actual cheese in the can, Just Tasty Goodness.
        • I just pointed out to my wife that the cheese she buys doesn't mention the word cheese anywhere on the packaging. They're called American Singles or Kraft Singles. It's made with a little milk and a bunch of other chemicals, but it's not cheese.

          Dairy Queen's ice cream is similar. This past weekend I was at Dairy Queen and noticed that they don't actually sell Ice Cream. I looked, but couldn't find the words "Ice Cream" anywhere in the store. They had a big poster on the wall about DQ's history, and even b

          • Oh I'm American... and I love Cheese ;-p especially a good sheep cheese with some water crackers, lamb shanks and a glass of pinot noir

            Yeah, food products aren't what they used to be... namely 'food'. I once saw a can of pink paste with a label on it that said "Canned Meat Product" it said it included 'mechanically separated chicken parts' heheheheheehe... it smelled so bad...

            Obviously I'm not a vegetarian but I won't put anything in me that isn't from a whole plant or animal, preferably organic. Anything e

    • Re:France? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:27AM (#13658108)
      wouldn't there be a significant difference between how the French or Americans surf?
      From my proxy logs: pr0n, ebay, pr0n, holiday travel companies, pr0n, webmails, pr0ns. Oh, and some work-related sites, like journal-officiel.gouv.fr or sante.gouv.fr. About 4% of the traffic. No, I don't think there's that much difference.
    • Just wondering why MS would test-run in France instead of some fixed part of the US.

      Perhaps the blocks of IPs assigned to a particular country shift less than those assigned to a particular region? I would imagine that they want to insure some sort of consistency when someone views the website from their neighbors house. That's tough to do if you try to show ads to an IP range assigned to the Pacific North West but people use AOL and show IPs assigned to Virginia.

      That may have little to do with it, but

    • Re:France? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Absentminded-Artist ( 560582 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:30AM (#13658134) Homepage
      Didn't Google have high profile legal troubles with France? 1 [heise.de] 2 [businessweek.com] and the famous 3 [albinoblacksheep.com] Perhaps MSFT chose France because it seems the less Google-happy place on earth.
    • The French like pr0n every bit as much as Americans.

  • MSN AdCenter (Score:5, Informative)

    by NoInfo ( 247461 ) * on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:22AM (#13658071) Homepage Journal
    The actual URL to Microsoft's MSN AdCenter:

    adcenter.msn.com [msn.com]

  • Healthy competition (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SumDog ( 466607 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:22AM (#13658078) Homepage Journal
    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.
    • I agree, and this will finally force Microsoft to stop sitting on their past features and force them to start innovating. It would take a large company to create this pressure, and Google has filled that role well. With both companies being so competitive, the consumers will benefit greatly.

    • Re:Healthy competition (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sedyn ( 880034 )
      The thing I fear most about google is that it may dominate the online services world and gain a monopoly position. Which is why most people fear it becoming like microsoft (as far as I've seen).

      The reason for this fear is two-fold, but both reasons stem from resources.

      In my opinion, a company is too powerful when we have the hypothetical situation that if their "IP" and/or physical assets are taken away, but not the talents of their staff, that they could not hope to compete with their previous work.

      Or to
      • I recently gave an invited talk at Google, and the audience was the best I have ever had (or heard of). They asked the best questions and had the best criticisms and insights. The audiences at academic conferences aren't nearly as good. Google's employees are top-notch. If you are worried about Google's power, you should be worried about why so many of the best and brightest people in the world want to work there (especially when they have a reputation for paying slightly less than competitors like Yaho
      • " The thing I fear most about google is that it may dominate the online services world and gain a monopoly position. "

        Why don't we worry about that if and when it happens.

        "The question that I pose now is, "Can an open source project, resembling google, have a chance against google?" As long as the answer to that is yes, I have no problem with them. But it is my fear that in the future, the answer will be no. (I feel that google can still be wiped off the 'net)"

        wikipedia and dmoz are a start don't you think?
    • Indeed competition is good. I agree with that part. Maybe the new MSN adcenter will force google to make AdWords and Adsense into a more descent product? Not so much with your statement that google does old products better. The latest products they released including blogsearch, google-talk and even gmail are certainly not what I call good.
    • 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.

      I used Adwords on my pages for a more cynical reason [yafla.com]. It is a bit of a conflict of interest when Google is so heavily invested both in search, and in content. I would love to see that market segmented more.

      In any case Adwords themselves weren't really innovative (like most Google serv
    • 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.

      What audience are your websites catering too? If its hightech(business software,consulting) use adwords. If your selling general consumer products use overture(yahoo). Just some free advice.

  • Pay-per-click? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BenjyD ( 316700 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:24AM (#13658085)
    I wonder if better ad-targeting will mean higher pay-per-click for the publishers? Not that anyone will dare discuss their Adsense earnings, for fear of having their account cancelled.

    • Re:Pay-per-click? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ChrisF79 ( 829953 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:35AM (#13658168) Homepage
      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.
      • I am very happy with AdSense myself, the ads are often very relevent, and if there are some bunk returns or worse yet, competition, one can filter them out...revenue has been decent, though I am not retiring early.

        As far as the inconsitency in revenue, I have always attributed that to the fact that some words are worth more than others, common words can cost a lot and therefore I assume the people like us that host the ads get a bigger slice o' the pie. Also, the content on any given page of your site could
        • Right, I completely agree with you. What's somewhat bizarre to me is that typically on my site I'll see advertisements from Morgan Stanley, UBS, etc. All big name companies... however, they must be paying quite low for their ads. I'm under the impression you can't negotiate with Google but somehow they aren't paying top dollar. It's a weird system, but I'm still very pleased with it.

          • Advertisers use a bidding system to tell Google how much they're willing to pay and those who pay more get their ads shown more often. Kind of a free market system. But there are some dampening factors used to reduce the price they actually pay based on how well ads are doing, how reputable the site is, etc.

            Eric
            See your HTTP headers here [ericgiguere.com]

      • Re:Pay-per-click? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by harvardian ( 140312 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @10:16AM (#13658475)
        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".
    • But wouldn't cancelling the account in this case damage the credibility of Google's "don't do evil"?

    • Not that anyone will dare discuss their Adsense earnings, for fear of having their account cancelled.

      Actually, you're allowed to disclose information about your earnings now, you can't just disclose specific details about number of clicks and such. Initially, yes, there was a restriction against discussing anything at all about the earnings, but that was lifted a while back. Certainly if your site draws the right kind of crowd (especially a paying crowd) then the advertisers will spend more to advertise

  • Will MSN's ads work (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    on linux/solaris/non-Windows non-IIS webservers? are they implemented as active-x's so they'd only work in IE?
    • I seriously doubt they would close off their own revenue like that. They aren't *that* stupid.

    • Who modded this interesting? this is such a troll!!

      In advertising, why would it make any sense for Microsoft to make ads IE specific? Advertising is about reaching as many people as possible with relevant ads. M$ are money grubbers, not just power-mongers.

      Personally, I hope the parent is right, because the one thing that it is hard for my adblock in firefox to block is the google adwords. If M$ did use active-x that would completely eliminate the problem for me :).

      But it won't happen. If you have been

      • In advertising, why would it make any sense for Microsoft to make ads IE specific?

        Why make web pages which are IE specific? You and I both know that that situation is done. IE-only html and script is used and the webmasters don't give one shit that you can't use FF or Opera, or any other browser, on their site. They're locked into IE. One would think that they would want as many people as possible to visit their site but by coding it for only one browser they are cutting off a fair portion of possi

        • > That being said, I'm not sure how one would even go about making an ad IE-specific unless, once again, some funky jscript was used.

          Well, since all you have to do to break it in IE is use standard HTML/CSS, I would imagine you could make it IE specific by just failing to provide a workaround for standards-compliant browsers once you got done kludging it to work in IE.

  • The Matrix... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Stanistani ( 808333 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:24AM (#13658094) Homepage Journal
    >taking advantage of the data MSN gathers from its more than 9 million subscribers

    We're not going to be farmed for energy by soulless machines...

    We're going to be farmed for our metadata by soulless corporations!

    I feel so much better now.

  • Its inevitable (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zappepcs ( 820751 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:28AM (#13658117) Journal
    Despite my normal anti-Microsoft stance on the world in general, this type of information usage is going to happen no matter what we as users want. The worst case is the governments of the world using personally identifying information in similar kinds of ways.

    Since I don't think it can be stopped any easier than spam-email can be stopped altogether, I want to make my online profile seem as non-descript as possible. That is to say that I don't want to be part of a 'demographic'. That probably means I'll get lumped in with people that buy things I don't want or am allergic to. This is all the more reason to not use MSN... to avoid becoming a user in a demographic. We don't allow the government to use racial profiling... this is just cyber profiling in my opinion, and far worse that standard advertisement campaigns.

    Of course the French will have differing demographic and cyber values than people in North America... we won't be looking to buy white flags :)

    Despite the jokes, does anyone know of software or companies that specifically work to help a user maintain anonymity in the face of this type of information usage?
    • How viable/likely would it be to contact a large information broker such as Google and get them to delete personal information about yourself? A lot of people probably have information stored in Google that they would prefer wasn't available to the public.

    • Re:Its inevitable (Score:3, Interesting)

      by harvardian ( 140312 )
      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.
    • I've never understood this mindset. The idea that corporations are somehow going to be more benevolent than governments with how they rape an pillage us common folk. At least governments have the benefit of being largely hobbled by an ineffective bureacracy. So who do you want as your slave driver? A ruthlessly efficient malevolent corporation, or a ruthlessly moribund malevolent government bureacracy?
  • 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.
    • Microsoft has had success playing the catch-up game in the past, but I think this time the lag is going to cost them.

      While I do agree with your comments about MS playing catch-up, I do think that if they play their cards right they could succeed in penetrating at least part of Googles ad space. MS isn't shy about throwing money where it thinks it'd do them good in the long run. If they started out with a pay-per-view instead of pay-per-click model, or even paid website owners significantly more per-click

    • But I'd assert that late entry is exactly their model.

      They have a huge war chest of pure cash, so they let other companies (even large and agressive ones like Google) do their market testing for them. They watch how the market responds, watch what goes right and wrong, and then only after it makes sense do they enter the market using overwhelming amounts of money and market position. If all else fails, they end up buying companies that own technology or experience flat out, but there's never any questio

  • Might be a good option? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by seanvaandering ( 604658 ) <sean.vaandering@ g m a i l.com> on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:34AM (#13658160)
    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 :)
    • Selling snake oil just got profitable again. People like you rock.
      • Selling snake oil just got profitable again. People like you rock.

        Actually, companies like Microsoft rock - its really not about me at all. I don't recall actually telling anyone what I do - but I can assure you it isn't spamming, or any other nefarious type marketing - I don't sell penile enlargements or V14gr4 but I do dabble in the adult industry, so to speak. I was just stating an opinion that might of been overlooked with all the Google fanboys jumping all over this announcement.

        These 'snake oil
  • Microsoft: Who do you want us to copy today?
    Microsoft: Innovation Through Imitation.
    Microsoft: Developers. Developers. Developers. [ntk.net] We are happy with our halfassed developers.
    Microsoft: Screw new ideas, we have a monkey boy [wikipedia.org].

  • Whoa, whoa, hold up now. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Pichu0102 ( 916292 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:35AM (#13658171) Homepage Journal
    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.

    Does this mean that people logged into their .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?
    • I would imagine it's sorta like Google, where it looks for keywords. Probably the different services you are signed up through in passport as well. I don't use passport/msn at all, so I don't know how extensive it is, but I'm sure that there's plenty of keywords they can match to you when you're logged into MSN.
    • The 9 million here are people who use MSN dialup service (like AOL).
      It doesn't count people who use hotmail, MSN Messenger, MSN Spaces, MSNBC or other services.

  • Innovative (Score:3, Funny)

    by sxmjmae ( 809464 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:36AM (#13658176)


    Good to see Microsoft is still Innovative.
    Surprising for such monolithic company to still have new and fresh ideas.
    You would think a large company, like Microsoft, would use it position to exert pressure to adopt their services.

  • The attack continues (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Crixus ( 97721 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:40AM (#13658208)
    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.
    • As long as Google keeps everyone, including Microsoft, on their toes and reeacting passively to their products, the "onslaught" can be avoided.
    • Actually, some people think that the question might be how long MS can withstand Google's onslaught. I personally believe that, while it is good to see Google competing with MS, we need to be careful. We don't know if they might become the next evil corporation. So far, they're staying good, but only time will tell.

  • Perfect. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Sialagogue ( 246874 ) <sialagogue@LISPgmail.com minus language> on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:40AM (#13658209)

    Finally, click fraud victim we can all feel good about. . .

  • In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by advocate_one ( 662832 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:43AM (#13658229)
    Yahoo share price collapses...

    Google share price rises ever so slightly

    Microsoft taking on Google... first casualty is Yahoo... meanwhile Google fails to notice any impact... 9 million MSN subscribers is peanuts compared to number of people who use google

  • You could probably get some real mileage off of using people's desktop searchs to make a profile and suggest products and services to people when they search their own files.

    Great feature for Longhorn, err. Vista and could allow MS to drop the buy price a lot.

  • Microsoft's Statement on Innovation ... (Score:4, Informative)

    by joelsanda ( 619660 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:54AM (#13658310) Homepage

    At Microsoft, we see a future full of potential. We're working to expand the possibilities for computing every day, by continually improving and advancing our current products and embarking on fundamental research that paves the way for tomorrow's breakthroughs. Through partnerships with universities, governments, and other companies, Microsoft is working to push the state of the art forward in ways that benefit everyone.

    http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/innovation/ [microsoft.com]

  • Google draws attention to little-known competitors (Score:3, Interesting)

    by haruchai ( 17472 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @09:55AM (#13658312)
    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.

  • One way that MSN can beat adwords (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wackysootroom ( 243310 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @10:03AM (#13658362) Homepage
    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.

    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 .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.

    If MSN can offer a decent amount of quality traffic for a good CPC I'll jump all over it.
  • MS makes a valid point in claiming that they have a better knowledge of WHO the user is. Having a profile of the searcher helps create better, more-targetted ad choices. That way users see more relevant ads, advertisers get more click-throughs and purchases, and the adserving company gains more revenue. I wonder if Google will use GMail and search history to change its ad targetting. GMail would seem to offer an interesting opportunity to segment users/searchers into psychographic groups that are far mo
    • From what I understand is the EULA for gmail claims they will never sell your private data.

      MS is taking advantage of this by doing just that in an effort to lure businesses to use their agency instead. Pretty sleezy if you ask me.

      Isn't MSNsearch integrated in part of the desktop for Vista? I have not run any of the beta's but I wonder if MS is trying to starve off google by going after its main source of revenue?
  • The majority of adwords are inserted by web developers. Will the development community use Microsoft adwords, even though, the majority dislike Microsoft because of their failure to update IE? With the already established Google adwords, it seems it would take a lot to get web developers to begin using a Microsoft product. ( I know, IE 7 is on its way ... and I really hope it lives up to its promises. )
  • "Microsoft is just stealing ideas!" "Google will kick their butt!" "Google is my pal and I'll never use MSN!"

    Whatever, the fundamental fact remains that publicly traded companies are not your friend. They are big companies driven by profit and accountability to shareholders. The concern for the individual is ZERO regardless of what cute corporate motto they might have.

    The darlings of slashdot won't come to your rescue without profit being involved. Google won't save you, and you're fools to want them to. Ap
    • Have you heard of the term "Doing well by doing good"?

      Yes, they are publicly traded companies with some responsibility to their shareholders. I think some things to consider are how Brin and Page handled their IPO so that they could retain power and control over their company so that they wouldn't be as compromised as other publicly traded companies are.

      Plus, let's look on the bright side of things. Competition drives innovation. If you think Google hasn't innovated anything then you need to wake up.
      • As far as whether indexing is evil, not inherently. Neither is providing the OS to 90+% of the personal computers out there, inherently. It's all in what you do with it.

        Giving Google power to search and cache all human knowledge has enormous potential for evil. Why shouldn't they roll over and the government search all Gmail to find whatever flavor of evil-doer is on the outs at the moment? Why can't the very items you search for be used against you? It's an enormous potential evil no matter how you slice i

        • As far as whether indexing is evil, not inherently. Neither is providing the OS to 90+% of the personal computers out there, inherently. It's all in what you do with it.

          Right! And that's where Microsoft has a track record of acting "evil" but Google doesn't. There's no point to get into details but I'm talking Microsoft leveraging it's OS monopoly in order to crush the competition and take part in some unfriendly business practices.

          Google, admittedly, is young and has a lot of time and opportunity to s

  • The news is only the latest in the software giant's plans to rely more on advertising. Microsoft also plans to offer more advertising-related software, particularly now that MSN is being folded into the platform development group, Hadley said. For example, the company already sells a version of Microsoft Money that has advertisements in it, he said.

    Why the fuck would someone want to purchase a MS product, only to be shown advertisements in it?
    • Intuit QuickBooks is a $200-$4000 package. Has their affiliate links/banners for things ranging from mortgages to accountants and so on all over it. Vote with your wallet, if you let them spam - they will.
  • MSN search engine is the easiest for SEO.
    Doesn't make sense to have a paid-for-click scheme.
    Google ok, granted, takes almost 2 years for your website to show up in the top 50 - even for very specific keyword searches.

    What is pretty ironically, is that a website which is compliant,
    whose html tags are semantic and even offers greater accessibility scores very very high on MSN Searches.

    Not for Google - for that, what matter is time, ever-changing content and a number of high PR links (but not too many links in

  • Is it mating season? (Score:3, Funny)

    by miffo.swe ( 547642 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .molbdeh.leinad.> on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @10:53AM (#13658798) Homepage Journal
    Well i guess copying is the sincerest form of flattering. Microsoft seems to be flattering everything in sight theese days.

    They sure are a flirty company.

    • They have seen that Google's approach to web advertising works, and is mildly appreciated by the masses. I have no love for Microsoft, but if they are resorting to good-guy tactics to make money, then I'd say that the battle has just turned toward the good guys.
  • Because if Microsoft's history proves right, they will throw money at the problem, and that means money for *me*. If I dispay the MS "Adwords" equivalent on my site instead of the Google ads, I can take a bigger commission because Microsoft will give more money per click or impression or however they will do it, and that translates into me being able to have a better site for my end users.

    We will see how the implementation goes, and how the rate structure may help my site.

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