Microsoft is full of announcements today, and the most recent one is offering competition to Google Analytics. It’s amazing to think that there is growing competition for free programs. Analytics have traditionally been an expensive proposition, but Google and Microsoft are changing this.
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Microsoft plans to launch their own contextual program this fall. It will be a US only invite pilot, however, one can request to be invited. What’s going to be interesting to see is how many features they plan on porting into contextual. For instance, they plan on supporting demographic targeting.
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adCenter had their latest community meeting yesterday and announced many new changes. These range from UI, to reporting, to new product announcements. FIrst, we’re going to walk through the new feature changes.
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There are three main types of vanity related keywords, and each has it’s own unique characteristics. Understanding keyword relationships is critical to both PPC and SEO.

However, the fun related keywords are when you can see what a search engine things about you (or your business, website, etc). When examining what the various search engines think about people, very obvious patterns exist – is there data or not? After going through several tools, Microsoft’s adCenter tool seems to be the most capable keyword tool. So, what does MSN think about you?

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When trying to reach a geographic audience, one must understand all of the geographic variations that searchers use to surf the web. Understanding these permutations will help target your online efforts at the appropriate geographic level.

If you play in the PPC (pay per click) arena, these are the types of keywords that will help you take advantage of the “long tail” and drill down into very specific geographic queries. First, lets take a look at the geographic keywords, and then we’ll examine the implementation techniques.

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While examining Microsoft’s new Live Toolbar button gallery today, I came across quite an interesting button ‘Google Operating System’.

Can Microsoft launch the new Google operating system before Google can?

Here’s a screenshot of the windows gallery (click for a more details view – look in the bottom right corner).

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