The new method of selling advertising will be used across MSN's search pages initially, company officials said. However, the content provider expects to use adCenter across other web properties in the future.
MSN has officially taken the lid off its paid search service in France and Singapore, with plans to launch a pilot in the United States next month. The program, known as adCenter , had been in testing since March in the two countries and launched in Singapore on August 31.
adCenter will allow advertisers to direct their promotions towards specific demographics. Ad targerting will be based on data collected from other MSN properties, however MSN has maintained any information provided to advertisers will be generic in nature.
The system will also recommend keywords on which to place ads based on the type of customer the advertiser is looking for. Such a featurewould prove useful in the event MSN has no information on the visitor, thus ensuring the best possible performance of an ad campaign.
Google and Yahoo do not provide targeting by demographic, and MSN hopes the approach will entice companies to place their ads on the service. "We're excited by the positive feedback we have received from advertisers thus far," MSN chief Yusuf Mehdi said.
Other features of adCenter include a site analyzer that suggests keywords based on site content; audience profiler that gives advertisers an idea of the demographics of people searching for a specific keyword; and detailed reports on ad campaign performance.
It is unclear what will happen to Yahoo search ads, which MSN has a contract to run through 2006. In March, Microsoft said that it remained "committed to working with Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) and will continue to collaborate with it."
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Microsoft announced today the official launch of MSN '''adCenter''' in France and Singapore. '''adCenter''' allows advertisers to target specific demographics using information provided by Microsoft's Hotmail and Microsoft Passport Network users.

"The launch of adCenter in France and Singapore is a great first step to delivering on our global vision to connect advertisers to consumers in a much more meaningful way," said Yusuf Mehdi, senior V.P. of MSN Information Services & Merchant Platform.

Advertisers will be able to target ads based on geographic location, gender, age range, time of day, and day of the week. If MSN has no information on the visitor it will display ads based upon keywords. Additional features include a cost estimator and a site analyzer that will recommend keywords based on the content of the advertiser’s website.

MSN currently has a contract for Yahoo ads that runs through 2006, and they are expected to slowly phase them out, although MSN has not confirmed this.  

'''adCenter''' has been in testing in France and Singapore since March. Testing in the US will begin in October. Microsoft plans to eventually sell ads on websites outside of MSN.

This initiative is a part of a broader strategy that Microsoft has launched to compete against Google's AdWords service, in operation for several years, which allows advertisers to bid on specific keywords and ensure ad placement on the company's search engine and other online properties. Microsoft's chief executive vowed to "kill Google" in an expletive-laden tirade against the firm, according to US court documents filed by Google.

Many internet users choose to block web page advertisements from both Microsoft and Google, using several different techniques of ad filtering, such as adblock in the firefox web browser.