Microsoft Unveils Online Advertising Service 180
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."
You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, I also like it when I'm trying to read an article and a 20mb flash application kicks up on top of what I'm trying to read telling me about Toyota's Western Washington specials. Like TFA's advertisements. That sure is awesome.
I love turning on the radio because I'm not looking for music, I'm looking for annoying talk about some product I'm missing out on. There's nothing like nodding your head to a good advertisement of a Fat Bastard impersonator trying to get you to come to Bub's Bar & Grill.
And now you want to make my mobile device throw random messages at me. Hey, maybe you can interrupt my personal telephone calls with advertisements from an annoying sounding person! That would be great.
And advertising in my productivity applications! And my games! *eye twitches* That's just
But why stop there? What boundaries does my personal life have yet that you have failed to knock down adn ignore? What about the novels I read? Can they have advertisements that cover up the words until I read them? Or maybe you could make software that injects product placement into scripts and storylines?
In fact, I love advertisements so much, you can tattoo me and inject electrodes into my head so all I do is think about Microsoft and how badly I want the XBox 360. Yes, I would finally be able to die happy!
If you hadn't noticed, I was being sarcastic.
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:4, Funny)
This is of course assuming I can get laid...
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:1, Funny)
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:2)
If that happens, put a muffle on it.
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:2)
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:1)
Given the ubiquity of MS Office, think of how it might benefit small businesses and the general productivity if the layman of Microsoft floated a lighter version of MS Office for "free", where it would place ads.
It would be truly foolish to think that Microsoft would want to place obtrusive or not-so-well-thought-out ad-strategies in its top-shelf products th
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:2)
Because our civilization has become bogged down by intrusive marketing. Beautiful vistas ruined by ugly billboards, magazine articles cut in half to make space glitzy adverts, pop up ads when you're trying to read something on a web page, there's a point at which some of us just want to take the nearest marketer and plunge something sharp and pointy into their
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:3, Funny)
Please aim for the chest.
Or do you really expect to hit anything worthwhile when plunging into the head?
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:1)
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Ads in Office (Score:2)
It looks like you're interested in buying a computer!
Would you like help?
<shudder />
Re:Ads in Office (Score:2)
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:2)
I expect the educational version, and standard version (for
"home use") will include ads in the near future. Only the corporate enterprises licenses will dodge them for any length of time.
I already despise the new acrobat reader for including that annoying pink toolbar button to take you to its online print services. Its just a matter of days before that button starts rotating other "services" I might want.
I don't expect it yet on the desktop itself...yet,
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:2)
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:1)
What pisses me off is if im in the car and on the radio on a Talk show, they talk about how
their "Brand Name Car" helped them get to work and how its soo nice.
Its one thing that they have ad's but to put them in the program pisses me off.
What I do to combat it is this.
I keep a tally,
See a commercial for Arbys? don't eat there
Hear a commecrial for jewerly? buy at a competitor when needed
See a bill
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, but how do you *really* feel?
Years ago I stopped listening to commercial radio, stopped watching commercial television, and make it a point to avoid places, people and things that offer up any sort of commercially-inspired stimulus. I'd like to think myself progressive, but since T-shirts and clot
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:2)
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:1)
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:2)
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:2)
Wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube man!
Wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube man!
Wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube man!
Re:You Can Keep Your adCenter (Score:2)
When Gmail doesn't need this and still clearly make a profit and Google's revenue is still almost entirely ad-based, and MS base their revenue mostly by selling products, why do MS need to do this as soon as they enter the ad market? Is it pure greed or inefficiency in using their revenues?
On the blue-screen !!!! (Score:2)
Let them put ads in their bluescreen and error message pop-ups !
This crash was brought to you by Durex Condomn (tm). Durex Condomn (tm) keeping you away from the *other* viruses since 1929.
Microsoft & Yahoo (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm sure this is meant as a bargaining chip. "See what you have to lose if you don't go with us, Yahoo?"
Non-IE Customers Not Wanted (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Non-IE Customers Not Wanted (Score:1)
Tire center clerk: Now, before we mount your new tires, what kind of vehicle are you driving?
Customer: It's a Toyota Corolla.
Tire center clerk: Oh, sorry, we don't support the car you're driving...
Customer: Huh?
Tire center clerk: You see, you can't put these tires on a Toyota. Toyota's don't have the "advanced features" that these tires require....
Re:Non-IE Customers Not Wanted (Score:2)
You must be talking about the part where the car quits automatically all by itself... thus taking a load off the tires and "making them last longer".
Re:Non-IE Customers Not Wanted (Score:2)
Re:Non-IE Customers Not Wanted (Score:2)
"Support" has been redefined to mean "interoperate with."
Re:Non-IE Customers Not Wanted (Score:2)
Re:Non-IE Customers Not Wanted (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Non-IE Customers Not Wanted (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Non-IE Customers Not Wanted (Score:3, Informative)
Related to the recent lawsuit against yahoo? (Score:1)
Microsoft is like the Karl Rove of tech... (Score:5, Insightful)
Go ahead, mod me down. You know I speak the truth.
Re:Microsoft is like the Karl Rove of tech... (Score:1)
Re:Microsoft is like the Karl Rove of tech... (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Microsoft is like the Karl Rove of tech... (Score:2)
1. Offer to "partner" with successful company.
2. Cut legs out from under "partner". Absorb all of "partner's" customers.
3. ???
4. Profit. Maybe - or maybe not. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that a non-Microsoft company which was once making money off of computers now isn't.
Are you kidding me? (Score:2)
The only way Microsoft has to promote their inferior product has been FUD campaigns and tons of self-promotion through marketing.
You insult the Bush administration and Microsoft in the same comment on Slashdot and you say "Go ahead, mod me down." You are definitely new here otherwise you would've known that either one of those alone would've given you an instant +5 Insightful.
If you would've thrown in some devotional passages to Linux, you would've been in t
Re:Are you kidding me? (Score:2)
Maybe you are new here. Didn't you know that saying "Go ahead, mod me down." always get instant +5.
Re:Microsoft is like the Karl Rove of tech... (Score:2)
Re:Microsoft is like the Karl Rove of tech... (Score:2)
Name one competitor that doesn't use MS products somewhere in their business.
In MS world view you are either a customer... or a ludite.
Microsoft's size is it's biggest asset... (Score:3, Interesting)
...and it's biggest liability.
They're so damned huge that the left hand really honestly doesn't know what the right one is doing. At least it sure seems that way, doesn't it?
Still no competitor to AdSense (Score:4, Informative)
M$ says "me too" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:M$ says "me too" (Score:1)
wth are you talking about? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:M$ says "me too" (Score:2)
If there is ever a sign that a company is completely idiotic, it's when it stops learning from its competitors' actions.
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?
The summary makes it quite clear that they're replacing their existing Yahoo! ads with their own system. It's hard
Losing focus (Score:2)
Not to mention, there are a LOT of companies that are afraid of competition from Microsoft. Why would they want to go through Mi
Ads in Office? (Score:2, Insightful)
Unless they are wanting to push most people to something else I don't think that will fly very well.
I Can See it Now... (Score:1)
Re:Ads in Office? (Score:1, Informative)
Why not do it now?
Re:Ads in Office? (Score:2)
These days, you pay $12 to sit through 30 minutes of real "commercials" of everything from soda to local car dealerships.
I stopped going to movies since I couldn't stand paying money to watch ads which had nothing to do with the movie experience. I can sit at home and watch same ads on my TV for "free."
It seems I am still the minority since people still go to
We almost do it now (Score:2)
Amercians are used to it.. I doubt enough would boycott buying the ad laced prodcut to make a difference.
Re:We almost do it now (Score:2)
Stock manipulation anyone? (Score:1, Interesting)
Could it be that someone wanted to manipulate the stock of either Microsoft or Yahoo. If this has been rolled out in two counries, and a 6000 customer pilot program, Somebody has to have known about it before today's news. It's completely obvious if Microsoft is going to compete directly with Yahoo's cash cow, their bread and butter, their /* new aphorism goes here */ Then the probability of Microsoft bu
Mixed Feelings (Score:2, Interesting)
In OFFICE? (Score:4, Insightful)
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:In OFFICE? (Score:2)
As for the time taken to disable these distractions: if an Office installation takes 30 additional seconds because
Information (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm curious which of their many sources they plan to use to get this info. Will they just borrow as much personal data as they can from your windows box and plug it into their ad service? Will they "patch" windows the way other spyware companies do? Do they already have all this info? I suppose I simply don't the idea of another more invasive ad program out there, but then I suppose it won't effect me immediatly, since I never use IE.
Oh, BTW, how would you like your job title to be "senior director for monetization." Is "monetization" even a word?
mod parent up (Score:1)
Re:Information (Score:2)
Yes, it refers to a government printing or coining money, especially as a means of paying off its debt. (For debt repayment, this is a bad and destabilizing thing, and one of the things "independent" central banks were created to avoid.)
In the context of the Microsoft job title, it sounds like someone was looking for something that it sound like it had to do with making money by selling ads in
Re:Information (Score:2)
I occasionally check it when I kind stumble across things I know I've seen because I
didn't bookmark, and they've slipped out of browser history. However, the cookie
constantly expires so I only have spotty coverage as I don't actually use gmail.
They're driving YHOO price down (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow, welcome Mr. Cringley (Score:2)
Re:They're driving YHOO price down ... too bad... (Score:2)
That's EXACTLY what ***I*** will do. I never had a Hotmail account, but I probably WOULD have had I heard of them before they got bought. I'd had have dumped it, too, once ms put their hands on it.
Do YOU know anyone who more or less feels this way?
(And, if they ARE doing this tactic to drive down Yahoo!s pricing, then the DOJ (yeh, f
Re:They're driving YHOO price down (Score:2)
At some point... (Score:2)
privacy invasive (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:privacy invasive (Score:2)
But if the government wants to do it in the name of national security, that's just plain wrong!
Not saying either is right, just that people seem to be much less worried about Big Company as Big Brother than they are about Big Government as Big Brother.
Is this just (Score:1)
BFD. (Score:1)
MSFT & YHOO - misinterpretation (Score:3, Interesting)
Damien
Return to the 90's (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Return to the 90's (Score:2)
Floppingwienervision?? (Score:5, Funny)
I can't imagine more than 2-3 people out of the whole
Re:Floppingwienervision?? (Score:2)
The whole HOSTS file thing... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The whole HOSTS file thing... (Score:2)
Hey, congratulations - that's the perfect premise for another new Mac ad [apple.com].
Location, Age, Gender, and Level of Wealth? (Score:1)
"AdCenter will give advertisers sophisticated information about consumers, including their location, age, gender and sometimes, their level of wealth."
Could MS be misusing all of that registration data they have been collecting? Or have they silently added another few hundred lines to their EULA / TOS?
Strike 3 you're outta there!
Re:Location, Age, Gender, and Level of Wealth? (Score:3, Informative)
Could MS be misusing all of that registration data they have been collecting? Or have they silently added another few hundred lines to their EULA / TOS?
Yep, especially considering that 87% of U.S. citizens can be uniquely identified by Zip+Gender+date of birth (see Sweeney, Uniqueness of Simple Demographics in the U.S. Population, 2000). T
Re:Location, Age, Gender, and Level of Wealth? (Score:2)
Nothing new (Score:1)
I don't know why anyone would want to be "affiliated" with MicroSoft, considering their history. Their usual tactic is announce an "affiliation", get into the company, steal all the intresting IP they can, then screw the hell out of them.
First step in the Ultimate Plan (Score:5, Funny)
No one except me, that is. Some said MS would go into being a conten provider. You fools. Porn sites are content providers, MS sells no porn. Others thought that Bill and Company were looking to get into the embedded device market. WTF were they smoking? Embedded devices have no need for brand names. Who cares what your VCR runs other than stinkfingered cheeto monkeys watching tapes of Enterprise frame by frame to see the T'Pol nipple shot?
No, the future is clear. MS must take their marketing talent and money to a new market. One that is unaccustomed to the trench fighting of the Tech sector. A ripe plum. Yes, I am talking about the snack cake market.
With the considerable leverage and investment capability, MS has the chance to swoop into the prepackaged pastry industry like Hitler into Poland. Sarah Lee is ripe for a takeover with the failure of their X-99 project of dehydrated cupcakes. With such a strong base, competitor after competitor could be gobbled up. In a few short years, there would be only one source for Coffee cakes, Twinkies, HoHo, DingDongs, Chocodiles, zingers, and snowballs.
Think I'm crazy? Get off the smack. The signs are there. The Xbox is nothing more than an activity inhibitor. Less active children eat more cupcakes. The BSOD was a conditioning system. Once MS introduces the blue frosting on their signautre snack bites, the dollars will flow.
This latest project is just a cover. The only ads running on the system in 10 years will be for BillBills and BalmerDogs. I just don't understand why people don't see it. Sheep.
Re:First step in the Ultimate Plan (Score:3, Funny)
announcing a collaboration with a company and (Score:1)
And Clippy returns! (Score:5, Funny)
I see you're writing a suicide note, take a look at these great offers!
Finally (Score:2)
Google...? (Score:2)
That said, Microsoft's new advertising program will certainly effect Google, but that is old news.
Oh please please tell me..... (Score:2)
Just lost me (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe driving YHOO price down before buyout? (Score:2)
In Other News (Score:2)
"Making friends and money is our motto", Ballmer said in announcing the new "employee motivation" program.
Not unusual in my experience (Score:2)
One of my clients does rolling renewing contracts (3-yr or 5-yr generally) with their clients. It is relatively common when a client's renewal comes up that they go to the competitor (our industry has two big players and two to three very small players) for a minimum-length contract, usually a year. Then they come back to us when that contract is up and offer to re-sign with us - using their business as a bar
Re:pr0n and brand protection (Score:2)
Pornography and online gaming at hundreds of times the speed of your normal advertising service provider. It's so easy to use, and the surgery to implant it in the base of your skull is so painless, that Microsoft is sure to be number one.
Microsoft's new spokesman [yzzerdd.com].
Re:pr0n and brand protection (Score:2)
Since I'm not willing to install flash, there is little chance I'd enable popups.
I can find porn without going thru all that trouble...
(not that any of it is hard, it just isn't worthwhile)
Makes all sorts of sense. (Score:2, Insightful)
Gray Usually is a Color (Score:2)
I am guessing in your rant on gray you are refering to the box color of the PC's. Which is even more revealing of your lack of artistry or metaphor -- most Macs I've seen l
Re:squaresville (Score:2)
Re:Something weird... (Score:2)