Microsoft gets into new world of advertising

Your ice-breaking metaphor had me thinking “skaters” before you said “ships”.

One of the key things to consider is outside of the US market, AdCenter should also focus really fast on launching their services into international markets. The official announcement is going to generate attention to online advertising from people that did not know about it because it’s Microsoft and if they want to try, they will only find Google and Yahoo’s offer.

AdCenter’s official entry into the advertising business is a good sign but there is a lot to do to get web entrepreneurs to choose AdCenter’s contextual ads instead of AdSense, there’s plenty of room for innovation but agility is key nowadays.

I tried signing up. Got this error message -

“Microsoft adCenter does not currently support the web browser you are using. Please sign in using Internet Explorer 6+. More about system requirements”

That’s not encouraging me to switch from
Google Adwords to adCenter.
Hmm, is it worth using that “other” browser?
Will I really get a different profile of viewers?

I don’t think I want ads in my software. can you imagine opening a Word document with a Viagra advertisement appearing before it opens. Like an interstitial? How about in a PowerPoint presentation, ads in between the slides, no wait that would make them less boring, think of the possiblities!

Carolus: that’s a good point. We’re not gonna put advertising in everything.

Carolus: No one wants that kind of advertising, contextual advertising tries to give you relevant advertising to what you are doing/reading; the ad-supported model is targeted to people that do not think the software they are using should cost, so the ads pay for the service provided.

Robert,

I have written up a long response and posted it to my blog.

My response is based on the thinking that is going into my book, on looking at Economics as a Network, on looking at the ecosystems around (and within) enterprises.

I look forward to talking with you at MeshForum this Sunday (and to interviewing you and Shel). Your readers are welcome to join us in San Francisco!

Shannon

Again, your Beatles analogy doesn’t work! Because many people copied The Beatles, with HUGE success.

Dmad: really? Name one band that copied the Beattles that was a huge success. I can’t name one.

Yes, they INFLUENCED a lot of music, but that’s far different from a word-for-word copy band that ends up playing in high school auditoriums.

Now, if you think that playing in high school auditoriums, or doing weddings and events like that is a “huge” success, then go for it. That’s not the kind of success I want to be a part of, though.

No one wants advertising.

With all that cash Microsoft has, the right way to compete with google would be to make a search engine that doesn’t have any ads. That would actually be innovative.

How to make money off it? Indirectly: make sure it works only with IE on Windows.

Evil – because Microsoft really has no business in search anyway, they’re only in it to kill of google – but evil for a greater good. I might actually have to say something nice about Microsoft if it did an advertising-free search.

I think I saw a screenshot somewhere of Windows Live Mail Desktop whew..that was long …. which had advertising banners ?
I can dig up the links if someone asks for it. I think it was on the live blog that Scoble linked to, today.

I am a Microsoftie, biased towards Microsoft, but I must admit, Microsoft is copying from other brands, in many cases improving the existing brands but still copying nonetheless.

Then again if the original brand was good enough MS wouldn’t be able to improve and win new clients would they? So in the end I guess it comes down to a better situation for the client, not necessarily for the inventor of the original brand

Then again if the original brand was good enough MS wouldn’t be able to improve and win new clients would they?

That’s where the reliance on bundling comes into play. By using an existing monopoly (ie Windows) as a distribution platform, Microsoft succeeds in injuring young companies and it doesn’t need to make things better, just “good enough” or at best “the same”.

From a money standpoint, Microsoft can fund a non-profitable me-too item using Windows’ margins, while the competitor must fold as marketshare, price-power and earnings erode. In the end, Microsoft stands alone in a market and innovation grinds to a standstill.

Maybe you can excuse that because you get a paycheck, but Microsoft is the death of the American dream for the rest of us.

[...] Dmad: really? Name one band that copied the Beattles that was a huge success. [...]
how about Joe Cocker (e.g. “With a little help from my friends”, “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window”)?
Beatles are a bad example because the list of very popular cover versions goes on forever (please note that I listed examples of artists that copied the Beatles back in the 60s and so directly competed with the genuine article).

Is adCenter only for advertisers? What about publishers? Wasn’t MS supposed to launch a rival to AdWords AND AdSense?
Is there a link I can follow for that?

Another trainwreck in the making, only in extreme slow motion. They can’t do content, they can’t do media, actually outside of OS and Office they haven’t done anything (profitable). And they can’t deliver, neither software nor hardware. (Stores here still don’t have 360s, yes still).

This proposal is half-baked Google envy, and the contextual advertising model is fraught with serious economic challenges and many ups and downs. None of which Microsoft has any real experience or competence in.

1. Microsoft Marketing has never been ‘cool’, they have been safe-zone static rich-info heavy. Boring and informational overload are good models for some markets, but advertising is not one of them. Why should we trust Microsoft here? Zero track record. Add in an internal inability to practice what they are now preaching.

2. They are getting into advertising not as a shrink-wrap replacement, rather as their inability to move to the Subscriptional Software model. But well, that model requires deliverables and a decent program, not the double to triple pay Software Assurance model.

3. Hosted free Office with Advertising would be more the framework. But no, all we get is the half-baked and hard-to-define Windows Live. Reminds me of when they slapped .NET on everything in sight.

that I can’t talk about yet.

Always with that eh? The greatest thing ever, until it hits and then half vaporware. Reminds me of your PDC 2003 era lingoisms. As they say in Missouri, show me.

The problem with the model is that Microsoft assumes that the future of advertising is advertising. But it’s not: the slow painful death of TV Advertising is just the start of the decline of one way brand dialog. Banners on sites, no matter how relevant, are still old advertising.

Thanks for your excellent insight.

When Eric Schmidt refers to Google’s main role, he always uses the word “innovation”. To him, innovation is the key product his company sells.

My interpretation of what your wrote is it sounds like Microsoft is planning on “catching up” with Google. Google seems to be planning on being in completely new, as of yet unnamed markets in the coming years. It almost seems as if they’re not concerned with their current business model

Operationally, I doubt Google is on par with Microsoft, but they seem to be ahead on vision. Do you think this a type of corporate arrogance or is their market share in search so unassailable that focusing on new products makes sense for them?

I find it funny how people think other bands copied the Beatles. They don’t understand the Beatle’s music and what they did with music. They broke the rules. Instead of standard timing and measures, they when to odd timing or odd number of measures. When the culture started to shift, they were out in front leading it, instead of copying. They pushed technology, instead of just using it. Of course, I wonder how one would do some of their tricks today. You just can’t physically spin a CD backwards to find out what the joke in Revolution No. 9 (Beatle’s White Album). Sure you can hear that the music is backwards, but you would need to take it into an audio editing software and reverse it and they play it at the correct speed. Ah, the days of turntables.

> The next three years will define Microsoft as a company.

When wasn’t that true for Microsoft? For any large company other than Coca-Cola?

Luckily this time around there’s piles of money to be had for all three companies — if we create value and find new audiences.

An important empirical regularity is that advertising spending as a share of GDP has been about 2% since at least 1925. Another interersting fact is that industry analysts have been in denial about the lack of growth in the share of advertising for about a half-century.

Perhaps Google has changed advertising more than growth of television did. Rather than assuming so, I would like to see some data and analysis indicating that new forms of advertising can be a major, economy-wide engine of growth.

“Name one band that copied the Beattles that was a huge success. I can’t name one.”

Beatlemania?

More directly – Tears for Fears “Sowing the Seeds of Love” is a pretty direct “borrowing” of a Beatles kind of sound.

@10. Surely by copying you didn’t mean copy “word for word”. Is it your contention that you were concerned that MS would rip off Google? Opening them up to lawsuits and patent infringements? Surely when you said copy you meant mimic.

I mean, I dunno, “The Monkees” were pretty much a rip off of The Beatles, and they made out pretty well. I’m sure Davy Jones would not disagree.

Let’s see, Elton John remade Lucy in The Sky with Diamonds, which went to #1 on Billboard

We also have:

“Fool on the Hill” – Sergio Mendes
“You Won’t See Me” – Anne Murray (1974)
“Got To Get You Into My Life” – Earth Wind Fire
“We Can Work It Out” – Stevie Wonder

“Here comes the Sun” Richie Havens
“Come Together” Aerosmith

Shall I go on? All of these songs were major Billboard hits.

And if you know anything about The Beatles you well know their initial success was based on covers. “Twist and Shout”, for example. Their early albums have many covers. And by their own admisstion some of their original songs were copies of others. “Come Together” was an admitted copy of a Chuck Berry song.

And if Harrison were still alive I’m sure he’d be happy to tell you about his plagarism suit surrounding “My Sweet Lord”

And being that “Yesterday” is the most covered song in history, well… I rest my case.

So, please, drop the Beatles/music industry analogy. It’s doesn’t work.

And finally, the tribute band “Rain” plays venues all over the world at $%55.00 a pop. (not high school auditoriums”), and often sells out.