Yahoo and MSN's strategic response to Google's dominance

With Google in clear command after Q1 earnings came in, Yahoo and MSN are launching initiatives to try and boost their search-advertising capabilities to compete with Google's wildly successful AdWords platform.

Yahoo's revamp centers on a technology revamp code-named "Panama" which focuses on bridging the gap between Yahoo! and Google with regards to the search-ad business. The new technology foundation is slated for roll out in May.

Microsoft's MSN service will launch its first search-ad network, called AdCenter, in early May as well.

According to eMarketer Inc. the revenues generated by search-advertising text ads were more than $10 billion in 2005 and they forecast that number to surpass $14 billion for 2006.

MSN's adCenter seems to gear the search-ad focus on allowing advertisers to target a specific audience/demographic type.

Yahoo! is still hush-hush about its plans but the guess is that they are trying to go head-to-head with Google in identifying user intent/patterns/psyche and having relevant ads displayed by analyzing the interplay of search queries, page content, browsing trends and patterns.