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Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Microsoft Bets on Interactive Ads

Who controls the cable box... Lots of business talk about interactive advertising, but ultimately who controls the interface seems to control the advertising. This puts Microsoft, along with Navic, in competition with cables new consortium approach with Project Canoe. Both seem to be competing for control of the platform and the promise of superior back office control.

"While Microsoft has attempted to gain a major foothold in cable for more than one decade by selling software for digital set-tops, in recent years, it has focused most of its set-top efforts on the burgeoning Internet-protocol-TV market and shifted its cable emphasis to back-end systems"

The advertising game continues to get more interesting and interactive advertising is a game changer. Are these two businesses complimentary or competitive. Who determines which middleware is deployed in the box, and does tru2way (OCAP) standards provide equal opportunity to impact which platform serves up the interactive ads. And lastly does the consumer have a say which platform thaey prefer to serve them. Kinda like deciding whether you prefer Explorer, Firefox, or Safari to be your interface.