The Hindu News Update Service
News Update Service
Wednesday, February 6, 2008 : 1110 Hrs
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sci. & Tech.
Microsoft kicks around ideas for future of Web advertising
REDMOND (AP): Microsoft Corp.'s online advertising researchers will spend this
year teaching computers to be smart about sticking ads into video clips,
and to be even smarter about targeting ads to specific Web surfers.
Microsoft showed off a handful of early-stage advertising projects at its
headquarters Tuesday that may or may not turn up as part of Microsoft's Web
advertising
platform.
The demonstrations come just days after Microsoft's $44.6 billion (euro30.36
billion) bid for Yahoo Inc., which, if successful, will boost the software
maker's Web traffic and online ad revenue.
With its 2006 acquisition of aQuantive, the software maker gained a broader
network of Web sites on which to sell ads, and tools to help marketers buy them.
A few of Microsoft's projects were aimed at helping advertisers get better at
reaching their ideal customers online, particularly using search keywords.
The company showed a dashboard advertisers could use to forecast the success of
certain keyword advertising campaigns and a system it says will make it
easier for advertisers think about key ideas, rather than hundreds of
individual keywords.
But most of the adCenter Labs prototypes had little to do with search.
``Search itself gets a lot of attention because of Google,'' said Tarek Najm, a
technical fellow at Microsoft. ``Advertising in search, as a result, gets
a lot of attention.''
Najm said spending on search keyword ads will be dwarfed by what marketers
spend on other types of online advertising, such as placement based on
``audience
intelligence'' - figuring out what kind of person the Web user is based on
their surfing and searching habits _ and display ads including video.
Microsoft _ along with Google Inc. and other competitors _ is also hard at work
on new ways for companies to advertise their brands to Web surfers watching
video clips.
One crunched a clip, looking for the most appropriate stretch of time and spot
on the screen for an advertiser's ``bug,'' or logo. For example, if a car
company wanted to show its logo for 10 seconds in the bottom-right-hand corner
of the screen, the computer program would find the 10 seconds in which the
logo interferes least with the action in the video.
Another used speech recognition to make a transcript of a video, then served up
ads _ in the demonstration, they were text links _ alongside the video.
As the topics discussed on screen changed, so did the ads.
The third program scanned a video for surfaces where ads or product images
could be inserted later. The demo showed how the same frames could display a
Coke ad one moment and a Pepsi ad the next, without having to reshoot the
video.
Other experiments included an interactive shopping kiosk that used elements of
Microsoft Surface, a next-generation touch screen, to show ads and coupons,
and a computer program that helped marketers avoid accidentally putting their
brand on a Web page with distasteful content.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sci. & Tech.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
google_ads_frame frame
list of 4 items
Marketing Firms Directory
Use the search engine for marketers to find the right company.
www.enginek.com
Mobile Phone Advertising
Drive users to your mobile site Your message. Your price. Start Now
decktrade.com
Email Marketing Software
Deliver targeted emails to your opt-in subscribers. Free Demo.
www.emaillabs.com
Advertising and Media
Complete coverage of advertising and media on NYTimes.com
www.nytimes.com
list end
Ads by Google
google_ads_frame frame end
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cities
Chennai
Delhi
Kolkata
Mumbai
Pondicherry
Thiruvananthapuram
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe.
To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please
visit the list home page at
http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
