Times Up MSN
Let’s get real. MSN is not a serious competitor to either Google or Yahoo. They have had a year and a half do something, after changing ‘focus’ toward Internet media, and they are failing to keep up with the overall online ad industry let alone the big two.
This from their most recent earnings:
“Advertising revenues grew 12 percent year-over-year at MSN in Microsoft’s fiscal second quarter amid ongoing investments in the area the company said would continue.”
“While overall ad revenue, including search, was up, display ad dollars saw an even bigger gain, growing 20 percent in the quarter as compared to the year-ago period. Part of that increase came via a hike in advertising rates, said Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell.”
Both data points are indicators that the firm is continuing to do pathetically and cannot keep apace even with the overall online advertising market.
If display is growing at twice the average rate of growth, they must be losing a ton of search share. Granted, the experimenting with the transition to Adcenter will have skewed the result negatively.
But c’mon. AOL is doing better than them for god’s sake.
It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee: Microsoft versus Google may make a great Businessweek headline but it could not be further from reality.
Who needs AdCenter when you can just use Kanoodle? Seriously, when MSN Spaces announced they were letting their users put ads on their blogs - through *Kanoodle* - I was just floored.
That + this = something at Microsoft’s badly broken.
Niki’s deep in the weeds again, looking just at the box scores. OK–If there was a big showdown next week on Fox, Google would walk away with the trophy. But that’s not it at all. MSN is seriously in the game: not because of how many dollars they booked last quarter, but what their intentions are. Establishing their sales division, with J. Bradford at the helm demonstrates a serious committment. Hopefully they stick with it.
[…] Keen readers will know my disdain for the pathetic performance of MSN over the past 18-24 months, even in the face of their increased focus and a supposed Pearl Harbor e-mail sequel from Billy G. […]
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