The MSN Homepage is out with a new, streamlined and less cluttered look. While marking another milestone in the history, the MSN team has finally succeeded in making a page that is easier to navigate and is filled with services that web users need on daily basis. You can now get information about online videos, sports, lifestyle, news, entertainment and Bing search experience all-together on the MSN Homepage.

The Bing is integrated in all the key areas of the page like travel, shopping, local and for highlighting hot topics, people or trend. If you are looking for detailed local information, it will be available on the new MSN local Edition, the only local online source with a combination of Bing search and real-time community news. The information here is grouped on the basis of ZIP code.

The new MSN homepage also gives you the freedom to in contact with your friends on social networking sites like Twitter, Windows Live and Facebook.  

The preview of the new MSN homepage will start rolling out on November, 2009 and it will be available to more than 100 million U.S. customers only by early 2010.  

The MSN team is also encouraging people to try out the newest addition and give feedback.

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The New MSN Homepage with Bing Search Package is Out!

MSN Live Search has added some new features to its Live Search. Besides the fact that most of the search results by Live Search end up pretty much as what the user is looking for, still Microsoft wanted to refine the user search experience. According to the Live Search Team Blog, the MSN Live Search has a fresh new look and has also focused on website suggestion features. It now looks for more relevant results by delving deep into the search results. The update to the Live Search will now enable the Live Search Crawlers to burrow deep into the search results to dig out and suggest relevant sub-pages in accordance to the search query. This feature is quite similar to 'Google Sitelinks' where search results included a set of links below them to pages within the website. This feature that has now been incorporated in Live Search Results analyze the search results and find suitable shortcuts enabling the users to find what they are looking for without investing a lot of time.

The new features, also incorporated in Live Search Products give the users an option to refine their searches based on user opinions, brands, category and price range. These options are visible on the left side of the Live Search Products home page. Users now also have the flexibility of comparing prices, user ratings and can also view the reviews of selected products.

It seems like these updates have come in the wake of many updates and features that have been released by both Google and Yahoo!. Hopefully, these new updates will put Live Search back in the competition. Honestly, MSN Live Search has been lagging behind these two for quite some time now.

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MSN Live Search Releases New Features!

In a Webmaster World thread, one user asked how to complain if MSN banned a site due to unfair reasons.

To this, MSNDude replied:

"http://support.live.com/eform.aspx?productKey=wlsearch&ct=eformts"

So far, many users are fed up of MSN's reinclusion methods,with some of them even saying that "Once burned, twice shy. Ask for "help" at your own risk, if you dare."

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Where Do You Complain If MSN Banned Your Site Unfairly

MSN India re-launches with a cutting-edge new design and new options and features. One of the new options include choosing either to view a narrow or a wide layout.

Andrew Hoppie, executive producer, MSN APAC, told AgencyFaqs, "India is one of the first markets with a fresh home page. We are creating individual home pages for different markets. We analyse the traffic and make sure we have relevant content." For instance, the MSN Japan site has an earthquake monitoring module – information useful for the locals. Hoppie adds that the MSN China home page was re-designed in July and has led to a 40 per cent increase in traffic after the change."

"Yes, there is an element of a global identity and there are some standard features, but the key differentiating element is the content."

One of the new features is the the tabloid version for MSN India.

"It has more entertainment content. It's more like a 'fun home page. If you look at traditional media, many tabloid editions are coming out. From our understanding of consumers, this is the kind of content they want," said Krishna Prasad, executive producer, MSN India.

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MSN Revamps MSN India Portal, Better Content And All!

As seen on Agencyfaqs!, MSN India, the third-largest portal in India, continues its upgradation of services to corner a larger share of the market. Having the latest version of Windows Live Hotmail with 5 GB free storage space, the company has recently introduced some new services like 'Sky Drive', 'Live Messenger' and 'Live Spaces'.

While interviewing Jaspreet Bindra, the country manager of Online Services Business, Microsoft India, he says, “Where we bring our strength is actually the services. It’s not easy to create a global, robust and secure service.” He further says that the portal will put more stress on entertainment and education, as it contains rich content in the specified sectors. Moreover, he mentions that there is a lack of clear business models in mobile content. He says, “The issue is that besides the operators, no one is making money. No one has cracked the business model – what kind of advertising, how and when to use it?” After realizing that mere ‘rendering’ of the content from online to mobile is not enough, he suggests, “I don’t believe anyone has the perfect technology for this, so we won’t do that… we would create a watermark for mobile from the perspective of content.”

At present, MSN is trying to extend its global relationship with Nokia, as the company uses the 'Windows Live services' into their 'Nokia N-Series' phones. Already, the tie-up exists in 11 countries worldwide and Bindra affirms that MSN India will do a similar tie-up soon. Though MSN India seems to have run into losses in social networking, Bindra expresses his positive hope as there are 130 million bloggers working with their best efforts. In support of the view of whether the company will likely follow the 'LinkedIn' or 'Facebook' model, he says, “we need to start respecting privacy”. But, he is not too enthusiastic on advertising as he stresses on social media. While being asked, he says, “The thing with advertising on social networks is that you don’t have control over the content. People are going to be wary of that until advertising becomes so smart that it actually reads the content and does not jar with the advertising. So, it’s still a little risky.”

Moreover, MSN’s 'Digital Advertising Solutions' offers advertisers spaces on its messenger and blogging services. While emphasizing the role of Digital Advertising Solutions, Bindra says, “There’s advertising which will start on the mobile, and advertising on IPTV, as and when we launch it. So, Digital Advertising Solutions actually goes across media and that’s why it was created.”

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MSN India Get Ready To Boost Up Mobile Content, Multimedia Advertising

In a recent state newspaper, it was announced that the state-owned Chinese partner of MSN, Microsoft's online services group, desires to sell all its holdings in the China-based joint venture.

Shanghai Alliance Investment was behind the formation of the Shanghai MSN Network Communications joint venture with Microsoft in May 2005. Now it is looking for appropriate buyers since last month. Both parties hold 50 per cent of the venture. Shanghai Alliance Investment is run by Jiang Mianheng, a son of former President Jiang Zemin. It is believed that the reason behind closing the partnership is the unclear business model of the venture.

The venture was used to provide online content, email and instant messaging services in Chinese language. However, there is no confirmation on this issue from both the parties. A Beijing-based official with Microsoft's public relations company H-Line Ogilvy was not ready to make any comment on the report.

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MSN China Wants To Be Out Of Joint Venture

Sometimes back in march, MSN/Live took their link: operator offline? Well MSN is now planning to open up that information once more with the new name “Webmaster Portal”. In fact, just some days after when the “link:” operator offline was closed, a small team was formed in Redmond. The team's main focus was to work on the next-generation set of tools, content and resources for SEO professionals and webmasters. Webmaster Portal is a single, friendly place to look for all tools and information relating to Live Search SEO. According to the official release, initially it will support the following categories:

• Troubleshooting tools to ensure MSNBot is effectively crawling and indexing your site
• Sitemap creation, submission and ping tools
• Statistics about your website
• Consolidation of content submission resources
• New content and community resources

As the tools need some more polishing, the service will be made available publicly by late Fall. But you don't have to wait for that long, as MSN has created a private beta program to let users get their hands on the tools sooner. They are looking forward to the valuable feedbacks by users. Email lswmp@microsoft.com if you’re interested in providing feedback on Microsoft’s answer to Webmaster Central and Site Explorer!

The new private beta of the Webmaster Portal is a promising sign that MSN/Live is taking search very seriously and moving in the right direction.

To read more click here

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MSN Live Webmaster Portal in Private Beta!

Just last week aQuantive shareholders approved the company's acquisition by Microsoft which was the latter's final hurdle. Now Forbes says 'Today, it’s officially part of the Redmond family'.

“Some expect yet another overhaul of Microsoft’s online ad operation as it integrates the $6 billion acquisition—and as it continues to search for the right combination of execs, tech and strategy to make its ambitious plans pay off.

The New York Post is reporting that aQuantive Brian McAndrews will head Microsoft’s ad-serving and technology as one of three senior execs reporting to Kevin Johnson, president of the platforms and services division. The other two are MSN head Steve Berkowitz and chief ad strategist Yusuf Mehdi. An announcement with details is expected now that the deal has closed. Update The release is out and, yes, it’s a major overhaul.

Some details:

Advertiser and Publisher Solutions (APS) Group: McAndrews will run this new group responsible for “will be responsible for building Microsoft’s monetization engine to serve the advertiser and publisher community.”

The group will build and market all ad platforms including Atlas, DRIVEpm, MSNDR and Microsoft AdCenter, in-game and mobile ads, and Avenue A | Razorfish.

aQuantive will stay in its downtown Seattle offices.

Leadership: As mentioned above, Berkowitz, head of the Online Services Group, and McAndrews will report directly to Johnson.

But the third member of the triad is Satya Nadella, who heads the Search & Advertising Platform Group, is focused on building innovative technologies in search and designing the advertising platform to support Microsoft’s business and customer goals.

Yusef Mehdi is no longer chief ad strategist; that role goes to Mike Galgon, an aQuantive co-founder who report to McAndrews.Mehdi takes on the new role of SVP-strategic partnerships “focused on overseeing international mergers, acquisitions and partnerships; managing strategic accounts; and forging relationships with early stage startups and venture capital firms.”

– The newly formed Emerging Media Group will report to Karl Siebrecht, president of Atlas. Massive Inc. and ScreenTonic will continue to report to Cory Van Arsdale as part of of the group, all within McAndrews’ new empire.”

For more updates, watch this space.

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Microsoft Closes aQuantive Deal

After MSN was reborn as Live.com the search engine giant refused to even acknowledge its erstwhile name. Now, things have taken a different turn. ResourceShelf reports that Live.com Adds Link to “MSN Sources” at the Top of a Search Results Page.

ResourceShelf :- "We noticed that a new permanent link (unlike others that can be toggled on and off) to MSN (like MSNBC, Encarta, etc.) is now included at the top of Live.com search results page.

+ New results page: A Search for iTunes Note the “MSN” link at the top of the page between the links labeled Maps and More.

Here’s a screen cap of the page before this change."

And here's a screenshot of the latest Live.com page.

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'MSN' Reappears! At The Top Of Search Results Page

The Live Search team announces three more features in Live Search images.

Now, along with regular images you can also specifically look for face portrait and black & white.

Samples of the new features are”

1. without the new features – jimi hendrix
2. with new face filtering on – jimi hendrix filter:face
3. with new portrait filtering on – jimi hendrix filter:portrait
4. with new black and white filtering on – jimi hendrix filter:bw

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Live Search Intrdouces Close Up, Portraits And Black & white Images!

The monthly search percentage numbers released by Complete.com has got some shocking results. In this recent June Search Share it shows that Microsoft is the biggest gainer. Microsoft has shown a drastic improvement with MSN/Live increasing their query volume by 67% from last month and an impressive 48% from June numbers a year ago. The overall increment in the percentage has been attributed to their online gaming requirements of coming through their Live Search Club.

There can be many other reasons for this drastic change for Microsoft. But now it is ready to give competition to Google. So, Google finally has a competitor in this field. Google has increased its 55% share from last year to 62% for the month of June, but the figures have dropped from May's 67%.

There is not any good news for Yahoo! this time. Yahoo! showed the largest drop, it has lost 16% as compared to the June month of last year and has even failed to show some sort of improvement from last month's number.

Lets wait and see what will the changes in the percentage game by next month. To know in details for June Search Numbers read this.

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Microsoft Biggest Gainer In June Search Numbers

Not one to quietly simmer down, Google has now appealed to Federal Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to participate as Amicus Curiae meaning friend of the court in Microsoft's anti-trust issue, reports Seattle pi. The appeal is 5 page long and titled “Reply Brief for Google Inc in support of motion for leave to participate as Amicus Curiae”.

Calling their own participation "timely and useful" Google claims that their formal participation in this case as amnicus "could serve a useful purpose."

About why Google should be part of the proceedings, the filed document reasoned:

• "a special interest … as well as a familiarity and knowledge of the issues raised. Noting the benefits of different viewpoints, including those of an amicus, both in promoting sound decision making and in demonstrating the openness of the court, and concluding that it is preferable to err on the side of granting leave. Google has familiarity with the issues raised and is well positioned to provide information to the Court. Google worked with the plaintiffs for an extended period of time to ensure that Microsoft's violation did not go unaddressed, and nothing in Google's request for leave to participate as amicus curiae is inconsistent with the plaintiffs' fundamental role in enforcing the Final Judgment, as confirmed by the fact that none of the plaintiffs opposes Google's motion. Notwithstanding the plaintiffs' role in ensuring compliance with the Final Judgment, the Court has also reserved for itself an important role in overseeing Microsoft's compliance … The Court has full authority to consider information beyond that provided by the plaintiffs to assist it in fulfilling this role."

Adam Kovacevich, Google's spokesman told Seattle PI that this appeal was only a routine matter and that Google was not pursuing the case further while Jack Evans, Microsoft's spokesman “reiterated Microsoft's previous statement: that the Justice Department and states said they were satisfied with the compromise, and that Microsoft believes Google provided no new information to suggest otherwise.”

Google is certainly playing the role of a sore loser, after all Internet Explorer version 7 used the Google search engine.

The appeal comes less than 2 weeks after Federal judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly left the decision for future considerations.

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Google Appeals For Formal Participation In Microsoft Anti-Trust Case

Based on a research conducted by Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions Online Travel Survey, Indians browse and surf the net for leisure and travel related information reports Television Point.

Between November 2006 and April 2007, 7,000 MSN and Windows Live users in 10 Asia-Pacific nations, including India were surveyed. Also, seven out of 10 Asians found it helpful to make online travel bookings.

Other Interesting points include:

1. Online travel spending: Australians and Koreans scored high—having spent up to $2,200 on their last leisure trip. Thais spend the least, at $700. On an average, Indians spent $1,300 on their last leisure trip booked online and $1,600 on their last business trip. The average amount spent by MSN and Windows Live users in India on the last purchase or reservation was $1,300 for leisure trips and $1,600 for business trips.
2. In India, travel trips are planned six weeks in advance and purchases made four weeks ahead of a trip. According to the survey, over the past year, air tickets (48%) and hotel reservations (22%) ranked as the most purchased items online for users in India.
3. The survey also found that internet users in India enjoy sharing their travel experience online through photo albums, email, instant messaging, and blogs. Of all survey respondents who plan their travels online, 73% in India do so from home at a time during when they are also checking email, chatting with friends, and sharing photos.
4. 7 out of every 10 users prize the internet for its depth of information on travel products and services and agree that making travel reservations online is convenient and hassle free.
5. Other trends: 91 per cent of the Indians surveyed claimed they were the key decision makers for their family travel plans. 73 per cent of them do their travel planning online from home, while two-fifths do so from work. They also expressed their interest in sharing their travel experiences online through photo albums, e-mail, instant messaging and blogs.

Jaspreet Bindra, country manager, online services group, Microsoft India commented, “The explosion of Internet connectivity in Asia has had a dramatic effect on how people conduct day to day business, communicate with friends and family, and on how they plan for their holidays and make travel purchases. The results of this survey demonstrate the power of online advertising to reach consumers where they are making key purchase decisions”.

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81 % of Indian MSN Users Browse Travel-Related Info

Webmasters are a confused lot at Webmaster World on whether Live.com / MSN Search is undergoing update currently.

The sudden rise and drops that are being described as “wild swings”. Whle some achieved high rankings, the rest's experience went like this:

1. “I thought they had resolved the blogspot problem, but today I see several junk pages ranking well, including the #1 spot for the phrase I am monitoring.”

For more, read the thread at Webmaster world.

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June 2007 Live.com Update!

Microsoft launches their new-look for MSN mobile. As with every other MSN product, it has clean lines with a fresh feel and modern feel.

Latest features in the new MSN Mobile portal include:

1. Sports – Get game scores, schedules, stats, and more
2. Weather – Look up the week's forecast
3. Entertainment – Find movie reviews, show times, and more
4. Money – Get instant stock quotes and money tips
5. Search – Find the info you need fast
6. Mail – Read and compose email while you're on the go
7. Local – Search local listings, get maps, directions and more

Phil Holden, Director Mobile Web Services, Microsoft said, "We firmly believe there is an inflection point here. There's a new battle, a new frontline developing on the mobile phone." Experts say number of mobile Internet users within the US alone will reach 110 million in 2011, compared to 32 million users now, which is a triple rise.

"The ultimate prize for all the players is to gain a foothold in the market for mobile advertising. ABI Research has forecast global mobile marketing and advertising to increase six-fold to $19 billion by 2011 from an estimated $3 billion by the end of 2007. Greg Sterling, founding principal of research firm Sterling Market Intelligence, said the iPhone and the new MSN portal reflect how companies are trying to address consumer dissatisfaction with surfing the Internet on mobile phones. According to Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence, "The majority of users are not surfing the mobile Internet yet, but there is pent-up demand for content on mobile phones." Within 2007, Microsoft anticipates adding banner, text or click-to-call advertisements.

The official MSN mobile website says, "We're constantly working to improve MSN Mobile. Get the latest on new features, downloads, and more. Be sure to check back often – this page will be updated as new features and services become available." The application scores 10/10 for aesthetics.

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Microsoft's Fresh, New Look For MSN Mobile!

According to the Live Search blog, Live Search Books now boasts of “ availability of in-copyright book content” among other new additions.

Live Search Books, is the first new important feature.
• “The integration of this valuable content will help us improve our ability to answer your questions and point you toward useful sources for
• additional information. The Live Search Books offering is part of our larger Live Search strategy to deliver the most relevant information possible to our customers in a seamless experience that integrates results culled from a variety of essential sources.
• Our design makes it easy to quickly figure out if a book is relevant to your search, then jump to the relevant information within that book. The preview pane includes a cover image, summary of the book and table of contents previews (where available), and a new hit density map that makes it easy to see where your search results fall in a given title.
• We also have included a page preview counter that tells you how many pages you have left to view within the preview page limit set by the publisher.
• Our viewer allows you to search for specific keywords, view full pages or zoom in, flip through page by page, and link to the book’s Table of Contents. “

Richer Scanned Images:
“Another thing that you'll notice about Live Search Books is the quality of our scanned images. We are taking particular pains to obtain the highest possible quality images to ensure that our customers are getting the best viewing experience possible.”

For this feature Microsoft corp has tied with a range of publishers, ranging from Harvard University Press to Oxford University Press to World Health Organization. For more deatils read the official blog.

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Live Search Books: Now With In-Copyright Books And More

Liveside reports Microsoft has an improved version of Live Search called Imagine Live Search.

Unlike the original version, with Imagine Live Search, search results are different too. Imagine Live Search has more information including images (including information about the image), a section called try other searches and related searches to name a few.

Other Interent Search providers already have similar versions like Yahoo Alpha, Ask's Ask X and Google SearchMash.

A user at LiveSIde says "Google got all the hoopla yesterday (gotta give em credit for the right PR moves…equally happy to see Windows Live has an answer)…but I actually like the 'Imagine' Live Search test layout waaaay better. Makes much better use of the available screen real estate and has more interactivity."

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Microsoft's Imagine Live Search: Search Results And More

New Reports inform Microsoft now owns 4% of job portal, CareerBuilder's equity stakes. With this development, the hold of the job portal's owners, Tribune Co., Gannett Co. Inc., McClatchy Co. on CareerBuilder decreases. Mclatchy already owns 31 newspapers and.

“Our strategic business relationship with MSN played a major part in CareerBuilder taking over as the industry leader in 2006, helping to drive critical levels of job search traffic,” said Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder. “Microsoft’s equity stake builds on this successful relationship and establishes a global alliance with one of the world’s most ubiquitous technology powerhouses. It enables CareerBuilder to continue to grow faster in the U.S. than any other job site while leveraging a strong international platform to quickly enter new markets in Europe and all over the world.”

In response Microsoft's James McClamroch, general manger of business development for MSN said, " CareerBuilder is a really good fit for us." Analysts feel, Microsoft invested in the company to increase its presence in local markets. While the job site needs a global giant like Microsoft as a defense against others like Google (whose growth is unstoppable) and Yahoo! (who already works with McClatchy).

A relationship that began in January 2004 has benefited the job site tremendously. Within just 5 years, CareerBuilder skyrocketed from third spot to No 1 in the country. On April this year, it was reported CareerBuilder had 6 million more visitors than the No.2, Monster and 10 million more than No.3, Yahoo's HotJobs.

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Microsoft Buys Minority Equity Stake in CareerBuider

Microsoft Founder and Head Honcho, Bill Gates announced his plan to focus his remaining months of active duty on search. At the company's annual Strategic Account Summit, Gates waxed eloquent on the transformation of destination-based search to an online experience.

A month ago at the Search Engine Strategies conference, Steve Berkowitz, SVP of Microsoft's Online Services Group, spoke in a similar fashion emphasising the differences between "destination search" (any randon search on Live Search or Google) and "convenient search" (where users search in whichever portal they are on). On the subject, the Microsoft founder said, “Well, by far the biggest thing essentially what we're talking about at this conference is the when people go to the Internet they have a task in mind. And it's not just to see a list of links. This is not a, hey, I'm paid to go do treasure hunts. They want to organize a trip, or learn about a topic, and the idea that we can capture things at that task level, and through the magic of software make that far better, and in particular when it's where you want to buy something, that the people who want to buy something that the people who want to advertise, who want to offer up that maybe they're the place that you want to do business with, I think we can make that far better.

I mean, after all, today if you want to do a certain type of transaction, there's probably a specialized Web site you don't know about that's far better than just the general, say, search way of going about. Why can't we take, by using a platform-type approach, the best of those dedicated sites and bring them in so that you don't have to click on a tab or anything, you just type your words, and yet that domain, those people who are expert are somehow incorporated into that. Now, there's a lot of software magic in terms of how you make sure that's very performant, and make sure you've got it right for that user, but because we can learn so much about users, and if we talk to them about how we're using that information, so they're explicitly saying, yes, I'm comfortable with this, and I can control it at any time, I think that we can take and move away from the way we think about this today, that we can provide a lot more value there.

So broadly thinking, it's about search, it's about buyers and sellers, and that will be my biggest thing. There are some things about getting the tablet driven into the mainstream, and about dramatic things in Office. And some of these will actually be the projects Steve is likely to pick for me to put my the part-time work into, even after mid-2008.”

Gates to continue with philanthropy after quitting by the end of 2008. More power to Gates.

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Bill Gates To Focus Remaining Days On Search

The Silicon Valley has always been a land of quick rise or fall and awe run by sharp thinking multi-billionaires-both young and old. This everyone gets. What befuddles common people is trying to understand their operations and functions. An obvious example of which was a report in the WSJ about Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc.

The report praises Yahoo for "the company recently has shown signs of momentum" when truth is Yahoo's turnover was a bleak $4.56 billion compared to their biggest competitor, Google's $7.3 billion. Well, you have to give WSJ this much for stating the fact about adCenter's poor show. "Another option for Microsoft is to form a partnership with Yahoo. The two companies had worked together before; Yahoo previously provided Microsoft with search technology and advertising. Microsoft broke off that relationship last year, as it phased in its own online-ad system, which has yet to attract a critical mass of advertisers."

An article in Got Ads? might serve an interesting read.

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MSN Yahoo! Deal, WSJ Has Its Facts Right Or Otherwise!