No Wonder Bill is Pissed
It is amazing that this has slipped largely under the radar: "Revenues at MSN slipped 5 per cent from a year before, as advertising income inched up 4 per cent."
FOUR PERCENT!
That hidden snippet did not make it into many stories about Microsoft’s recent quarterly earnings, but is significant to the world of online advertising. Microsoft’s other divisions and issues were strong enough to overshadow the pathetic performance of MSN.
Sure they have gone a long way to improving their search in recent times and the soon-to-be-launched MSN Adcenter is brilliant and forward thinking but FOUR PERCENT. Overall online display advertising is growing by 25% each year in the US at the moment and even more overseas. Search is growing stronger than online display advertising.
I can’t work out ways in which advertising could only grow by such a small amount. There are no legacy deals with advertisers that would suggest an overhang. Plain bizarre.
If anyone has any thoughts on how MSN’s online advertising revenue could only grow four percent, I’d love to hear them.
christa davies is to blame