adCenter Labs Shows off 'Breakthroughs,' Video Hyperlinks

Video Hyperlink demo

Microsoft is this week offering what it says is a "glimpse at the future of online advertising" and announced that its video hyperlink technology will debut ahead of schedule.

Microsoft's third-annual Demo Fest two-day gathering in Redmond is showcasing "breakthrough digital advertising tools" by Microsoft adCenter Labs, which is tasked with spawning innovations for Microsoft's adCenter platform.

Microsoft adCenter Labs will work with a national retailer this spring to bring the first Video Hyperlink ad pilot to MSN, Microsoft said. The ad will feature a video segment with embedded hyperlinks for featured products. Those who click on the products will be taken to a page on the retailer's website where they can purchase the item.

"At last year's Demo Fest we said that this technology would take us three to five years to get to market, but due to overwhelming community feedback we've been able to release it in just one year," said Tarek Najm, distinguished engineer and general manager of Microsoft adCenter.

The seven focus areas of adCenter Labs are keyword and content technologies, ad selection and relevance, audience intelligence, social networking, video, platforms, and devices. Among the technologies being developed by the 120 or so Microsoft adCenter Labs researchers and engineers are the following (as described by Microsoft):

• Keyword Services Platform. The platform provides a set of web service APIs related to keyword technologies, including keyword recommendation, forecasting, categorization and monetization, enabling developers to build more intelligent applications for online advertising and beyond.
• Commercial intent detection. Advanced keyword analysis helps differentiate consumers who want to make an online purchase from those who are searching for information about products or performing other tasks.
• Large display feedback. Vision-based technology creates interactive public displays that can measure the size of the audience, as well as track audience gestures and estimate demographics.
• Social video sharing. This is a next-generation video-sharing solution that features a synchronized "commenting" technology. The introduction of in-video, synchronized comments enables a new level of interaction between users, opening up the video as a medium for collaboration.
• Content classification. By accurately analyzing and matching the Web pages included in search results, Microsoft adCenter Labs technology helps increase the probability that the ads displayed during web searches are relevant to consumers.