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January 18, 2007

Microsoft Lays Down the Gauntlet on Paid Search Enhancements

Posted by Adam Viener

Microsoft will showcase a good selection of Digital Advertising Breakthroughs at their Third Annual Demo Fest this week, their two-day gathering on Microsoft's Rednond campus.

Microsoft will showcase nearly 60 technologies at various stages of develpment. Their latest digital advertising beta tools are available at http://adlab.msn.com.

“The technologies showcased at Demo Fest will help create unprecedented opportunity for developers and search engine marketers like the Keyword Services Platform,” said Tarek Najm, distinguished engineer and general manager of Microsoft adCenter at Microsoft. “KSP is a service that provides a framework for researchers to plug in advanced algorithms in the form of building blocks to be consumed by developers for building sophisticated advertiser applications.”

Developed by the rapidly growing team of more than 120 Microsoft adCenter Labs researchers and engineers, technologies displayed Wednesday are all designed to help provide the best advertising experiences for users, advertisers and developers. They include the following:

• Keyword Services Platform. The platform provides a set of Web service APIs related to keyword technologies, including keyword recommendation, forecasting, categorization and monetization, enabling developers to build more intelligent applications for online advertising and beyond.

• Commercial intent detection. Advanced keyword analysis helps differentiate consumers who are looking to make an online purchase from those who are searching for information about products or performing other tasks.

• Large display feedback. Vision-based technology creates interactive public displays that can measure the size of the audience, as well as track audience gestures and estimate demographics.

• Social video sharing. This next-generation video sharing solution features a synchronized “commenting” technology. The introduction of novel in-video, synchronized comments enables a new level of interaction between users, opening up the video as a medium for collaboration.

• Content classification: By accurately analyzing and matching the Web pages included in search results, Microsoft adCenter Labs technology helps increase the probability that the ads displayed during Web searches are relevant to consumers.

A complete list and explanations of the technologies showcased at this year’s Demo Fest can be found in the Microsoft adCenter Labs Advanced Tools fact sheet at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/msn/factsheet/adCenterBreakthroughsFS.mspx

The message to competitive search engine companies is clear, innovate or perish!