Yahoo’s line of thinking with regards to the big Microsoft/Yahoo search and advertising deal is that it will benefit both Microsoft and Yahoo’s advertisers, as well as consumers and publishers.
It will benefit advertisers because it will increase search volume, with results from both Bing and Yahoo being taken into consideration. It will benefit consumers because by combining advertisers from both properties, there will be a greater pool to deliver sponsored results from, which Yahoo says will mean increased relevance. It will benefit Yahoo, Bing, and their publisher partners with increased liquidity, participation, and relevance. That is basically the sum of it, according to Yahoo Vice President of Search Advertising David Pann.
WebProNews recently sat down with Pann and discussed these things and how the deal will affect advertisers.
According to Pann, the migration across all international markets will occur over the next 24 months or so, but they will not rush it at the expense of quality, they say. “Our focus is really about developing a plan that is smooth, seamless, and with quality. So we anticipate doing the U.S. migration sometime before the holiday season in 2010,” says Pann.
In the above interview, Pann goes on to talk about how things will be split between Yahoo and Microsoft. He also addresses some privacy concerns, related to data sharing between the two companies.
WebProNews also interviewed Yahoo Sr. VP of Search Products Shashi Seth and Director of Search Marketing David Roth, both of whom talked about the deal in more detail. You can catch both of those interviews, as well as a recent keynote from SMX West where the deal was also discussed, here.
Update: After some delay, Microsoft is reportedly now rolling out the new MSN home page design over the next couple weeks.
Original Article: MSN.com gets about 85 million unique monthly visitors in the US alone, according to Compete. That’s significantly more than AOL.com. So now that Microsoft has unveiled a redesign to it, it stands to reason that a lot of people are going to be affected by it. Microsoft calls the new design MSN’s most significant home page redesign in over a decade.
“Now is the time to clean up the mess on the Web — people need less clutter and less hassle to find what matters most to them,” said Erik Jorgensen, corporate vice president, Microsoft. “Microsoft is uniquely invested in search, media experiences and technical innovation. Combining these assets to deliver our new MSN home page is a tremendous win for customers and advertisers.”
What do you think of the new design? Share your opinions here.
The new design pays significant focus to local, Bing, social networks, and news. Coinciding with the announcement of the redesign was the unveiling of MSN Local Edition. This is a section of MSN that gives you local news, weather, sports, movies and events, restaurants, gas, traffic, a directory, lottery numbers, etc.
The Bing integration with the new MSN is deeper. It’s now used as the core search technology throughout the home page in areas like shopping, travel, and local. It is also used as a way to highlight hot topics, trends, and people.
There is a clean integration of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, as well as Microsoft’s own Windows Live “What’s New,” which aggregates up to 50 web activities from various places like Yelp, Flickr, Pandora, etc.
“Customers told us they want the latest information from their favorite sources, their friends and the breadth of the Web — and the new MSN home page delivers via a fresh new look and new features,” Jorgensen said. “Today is an important transformation for MSN, and it’s just the beginning.”
There is also an emphasis on de-cluttering the home page. Microsoft says there are 50% fewer links than on the previous version. Here’s what the whole thing looks like:
The design is not live on a wide scale yet. It will be rolling out gradually over the coming weeks. It is, however available as a preview here.
On a related note, Microsoft is finally launching MSN Music this week. The launch has been postponed since July.
Related Articles:
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> Microsoft Partners With Advance Internet On Local Ad Deal
> Bing Gets More Mobile Features in The US
As fans of “The Office” may know, it’s fairly common for the entertainment industry to take a successful concept and adapt it for use overseas. And now, Microsoft’s performing a similar conversion, launching a “Bing and decide” advertising campaign in the U.K.
It’s a good bet that you’ve seen a couple of these amusing TV spots by now; they feature one person trying to talk to another, but the second individual, suffering from “search overload,” is only able to respond by rattling off absurd details related to certain keywords.
It’s commercials in this vein that Microsoft intends to air in the U.K., starting this Wednesday and continuing through the middle of June. Mark Sweney reported that the campaign will cost the company a significant amount: $2 billion.
Ashley Highfield, who used to work for the BBC and now holds the lengthy title “Managing Director & VP, Consumer & Online UK” at Microsoft, also assured Sweney, “This is a big moment - we are taking out our slingshots and taking on Goliath.”
Highfield didn’t lay out what sort of market share gains Microsoft hopes to make as a result of this ad campaign.
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