This question has been asked quite a lot and many people wander wether or not MSN ContentAds will be worth the effort getting into. Here we show you how and where to sign up and highlight some of the mistakes MS seems to be making, already in the sign-up form!

Currently Microsoft seems to be trailing behind in the multi-million-dollar adverising market Google has monetized in.  Afer the success of google adWords, which clearly overran the already existent Microsoft advertising network, MS is trying to fill the gap with free tools like Microsoft Analytics and MS adCenter for Publishers. All these tools are still in Beta and getting an account can only occur by getting an invite after entering a registration form.

Sign-up form for MS ContentAds

To get into MSN adCenter for Publishers, which will probably be deamed Microsoft ContentAds in the future one has to fill in a form portraying ones interest in the program.

From the homepage at:  https://beta.pubcenter.microsoft.com/ one can quickly find the form located at:  http://advertising.microsoft.com/publisher.

On a first glance on the form, immediately some interesting and somewhat disturbing features appear.

Registration Form Microsoft ContentAds Beta

The Name Field:

Have you ever seen a filed in which you have to input your name with your firstname and then your lastname seperated by a COMMA (First, Last)? Where did they get this idea, haven’t they browsed the internet before? Haven’t they filled in an internet form for hemselves before? Seems a wee bit unprofessional.

Next of, the User Agreement:

If it wasn’t already weird enough one whould sign a user agreement prior to filling in a form they also include some quite disturbing restrictions and prohibitions. Why, in the first place would somebody agree to a user-agreement when filling in a form of interest. Users are not even signing up for the real thing yet.

Then, some restrictions are unleashed on the user:

ALL websites must be approved

You may not - access the Service from any websites or other locations, other than Your Websites that have been approved by Microsoft

You may not - Include any other search advertisements (i.e., advertisements displayed in response to search queries) on the same page

If their trying to get a foothold on the online advertising market, they should lay off some of these restrictions. Google seems to be coping quite nicely with letting their users run wild. Isn’t that also what the web is moving towards, with the whole Web 2.0. Users are more and more in control, just make sure you have a good spam and fraud detection system.

MS also claims they are not obligated to provide ANY technical or other support. So I should sign up and then when my website finally gets approved, I have removed all other ads from my pages and I’ve implemented their code I get no right to any support if things go wrong. Am I not providing some kind of service to MS as wel, by showing their ads???

Then, on their progress with this Beta:

Since 2006 this system has been announced. Now in 2009, it’s still in Beta, they only offer people to singup from selected countries (Brazil is the only country in South America, South Africa the only one in Africa, and where is Russia, Pakistan and Isreal??)

Again, it seems as is Microsoft just can’t seem to get a foothold in the online advertising frenzy by making some very simple and easily avoided mistakes.