Microsoft recently opened an advertising laboratory called adLab in Beijing, China, where it has reportedly hired 50 researchers to work on about 40 different technologies that will facilitate advertising through video, television, and mobile phones. This news was revealed this past week during Microsoft’s adCenter Demo Fest which was held at its Redmond, Washington headquarters.
The technologies developed and researched in this state-of-the-art lab will be carried out for MSN’s upcoming adCenter which will offer paid search, analytical tools, along with other various services for advertisers. Online advertisers will be able to receive detailed demographic data about their consumers and will be given the use of various new marketing technologies. AdLab is a joint effort between MSN’s adCenter and Microsoft Research, and is a part of Microsoft’s adCenter initiative, which began last year in hopes of taking a greater share of the search market.
Currently, adCenters are already placed in Singapore and France, and a beta version is expected to be live in the U.S. sometime in June.
Microsoft unveiled a number of technologies that it hopes to develop further, including bar-code readers, social network mining, and video hyperlink ads. The latter is one that will surely garner the keen interest of consumers everywhere.
Essentially, video hyperlink ads are able to detect products that are displayed on TV screens during shows and commercials. If a viewer likes a certain product they see on the screen, they can zoom in on the product and click on it to get to more detailed information about the product and where it can be purchased.
So, for example, if a viewer is watching an episode of “LOST” and they like the backpack that Locke is toting, they can simply zoom in on it, click on it, and read more information on the product, view advertisements for the product, and find out where it can be bought.
Currently, Microsoft is a distant third in the online search realm. Tarek Najm, general manager of adCenter at Microsoft, said that they are intent on establishing Microsoft on the top of this arena. “With this long-term applied research, we will continue to help improve advertisers’ return on investment by delivering rich audience-intelligence information and enabling simple and complete control over all aspects of the advertising campaigns,” he said.
On February 28th the Search Engine Strategies conference opens in New York, and analysts expect Google and Yahoo! to respond to Microsoft’s recent advances into the territory that they have dominated thus far.
“In features as well as strategy, companies like Yahoo!, Google, and Microsoft are all pretty close to each other. They move quickly to match a competitor’s innovations or strategy changes,” said Yankee Group analyst Patrick Mahoney.
Sources:
http://www.techtree.com/techtree/
jsp/article.jsp?article_id=70683&cat
_id=643
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/
QZzezRUUq68h3T/Microsoft-Raises-
Stakes-in-Paid-Search-Game.xhtml
http://www.toptechnews.com/story.
xhtml?story_id=40942
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