Bloomberg spoils the MSN Advertising party in Redmond

The Road Ahead in Internet Search Advertising is proving tough for Microsoft. Just a day before the MSN Strategic Account Summit where Microsoft is expected to showcase the MSN AdCenter advertising platform, a Bloomberg report has speculated that Microsoft's AdCenter May Fail to Topple Google From Dominance.

MSN AdCenter is accessible only to test clients and will be fully available by the end of June. In tests, advertisers praised the Microsoft program for allowing them to target Internet search users of a certain age, gender and income. Google doesn't do that, letting advertisers pick only specific areas of the country.

At the same time, Bloomberg writes that while five advertisers who have tested the product said the program gives them features that Google lacks, they said they won't increase their spending on Microsoft's MSN search engine because it doesn't draw enough customers.

Microsoft's job Web site has 86 open positions in AdCenter and 220 people on board working for Adcenter project. Advertisers expect improvements at MSN to help them win better prices if there are more alternatives to Google.