The user interface and reporting features have been updated on adCenter, but communicating these updates doesn’t seem to be a priority.
There is a wonderful rant by Todd Sullivan posted on Seeking Alpha about the nigh-obsessive coverage Google receives in the media. One gem from that:
I am waiting for twenty posts tomorrow about what CEO Schmidt ate for breakfast and what color it turned his stool, where I can find the video on Youtube and how this is just another brilliant marketing ploy. Once again, Google originality on display.
There’s a very simple reason why Google gets all of this coverage and Microsoft won’t get it for their latest update to adCenter. Google blogs relentlessly about its products and Microsoft does not.
Here’s the entirety of a post by an adCenter developer about Microsoft’s latest updates to that product:
We have released 3.7.1 version of adCenter – new UI, tons of additional features, pretty cool reporting.
https://adcenter.microsoft.com/
Any comments are greatly appreciated. If you see any issue or have a question, feel free to ask and I promise to investigate and at least give some updates.
The official adCenter blog isn’t even this helpful. Its last post came yesterday to announce they had fixed a problem with the adCenter Help system.
There is no coordination with the developer who posted about the update, and no mention of the latest update on the official blog. When Google updates something in its ad products, one can bet the updates will be in at least one blog when the update takes place.
A fundamental difference between Microsoft and Google may be the reason for the different approaches. Google’s advertising represents some 99 percent of its revenue. Microsoft has Windows and Office driving its revenue stream.
Maybe it’s just not that important to Microsoft, but if they want to take on the biggest competitor in the online ad space, it might be a good idea to imitate some of Google’s methods. The main points behind their newest adCenter update would be a good place to start.
