Microsoft’s adCenter steps firmly into the spotlight today at the company’s annual summit for advertisers, as the ad auction service, in the works since late 2004, moves from a limited 6,000-advertiser trial to open use. No understimating the importance of the project to Microsoft. As Tarek Najm, adCenter GM, told the Journal, it’s “the next big revenue engine for the company.” Search isn’t the advertising that can run through adCenter; eventually, the same servers and software could power other kinds of advertising. (In-game ads from Massive, perhaps?)
This is being positioned in a lot of places as an effort to beat Google but Microsoft can win by increasing its own share — even if it doesn’t gain supremacy (an unlikely scenario in any case) — and becoming a “must buy” instead of “maybe in addition to.”
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