Microsoft will reportedly begin a test of its ad placement service in the US at MSN Search.
After giving the service a kickstart in Singapore and France, MSN will introduce an ad service, MSN Keywords, on its US-based search site, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Everybody wants some of the online advertising lucre. The Journal reports that poll could be as high as $5.4 billion USD, per research from eMarketer Inc. Google has been doing context ads for some time on its web site.
Yahoo joined that competition after purchasing Overture in 2003. Earlier this week, IAC/InterActive Corp’s Ask Jeeves disclosed it has started an ad network of its own, which will compete with the very Google service that has provided it revenue for the past couple of years.
Microsoft seems to be moving carefully with its debut; reportedly it will invite 500 advertisers and marketers to participate in MSN Keywords. Those ads will only appear on MSN’s search pages. Microsoft will sell those ads by keyword auctions; the highest bidder for a keyword gets the best placement when ads are displayed.
Everyone has a lot of catching up to do with Google. Microsoft is just getting started, and has been successful in other markets it has entered late. The real beneficiaries could be small publishers, though.
If Microsoft follows Yahoo in making a program available to site owners, similar to Google’s AdSense, and can compete on what they will pay to those publishers, they could have an impact on Google’s revenue stream. Microsoft would love to accomplish that.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
