Overture extends deal with MSN search

separate from the MSN websites

[Shak]

users of MSN Search, which is accessible through Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser software, in the UK, Germany and France, as well as Japan and South Korea until December 2004.

[brandrepublic.com...]

Shak

[jeremy goodrich]

Good news for Overture advertisers - I guess that makes the likelihood of MSN developing their own in house PPC a lot less, eh?

[heini]

It's mostly an extension of the agreement, which was to expire in December 2003 for the European MSN sites, to December 2004.
It's also an expansion:

At the same time, both the MSN Search and MSN Web site agreements have been expanded to include Overture's recently launched Italian operation, as well as territories Overture plans to enter by the end of 2003, including Spain, the Netherlands and certain Scandinavian markets.

Overture PR [corporate-ir.net]

Interesting news for European advertizers.

[scottperry]

I predict that Microsoft will buy OV anyway...

[Chris_R]

I predict that Microsoft will buy OV anyway

That is a wise prediction

[Kirby]

It would be an interesting marriage. When the minister asks if anyone knows of a reason why these two shouldn't be joined together, I wonder if GG will say anything.

[percentages]

I think this means MS will not be ready with a fully functional internally developed search engine (including one that handles PPC) in the next 18 months.

Good news for Overture and probably Yahoo/INK for a while.

[Skylo]

"That is a wise prediction "

I will second that. I didn't think that msn would want that and that they were going to go all out on the SE side. Obviously they must like each other and make good bed partners;-)

"Good news for Overture and probably Yahoo/INK for a while"

Yahoo must be loving the news. I am sure they would not want msn developing a hectic SE at the same time that they are getting used to INK....experimenting etc.

My 2 cents:-)

[heini]

Well, what that means for me as a European marketeer is at least in the PPC arena there is a choice. It's really somewhat depressing if not only up to 80% of free traffic comes from Google but also the majority of paid traffic. Many countries in Continental Europe are even more googlized than the US or UK.
Overture broadening their network and reach in Europe is good news - who would have thought I'd say that 2 years ago...

[kstprod]

It would be an interesting marriage. When the minister asks if anyone knows of a reason why these two shouldn't be joined together, I wonder if GG will say anything.

I love it...lmao

[Seattle_SEM]

I predict that Microsoft will buy OV anyway

If MS was going to buy Overture (and FAST and AV), then they would have done it *before* developing their own search crawler [webmasterworld.com].

[TravelSite]

Microsoft could always attempt to buy findwhat/espotting - giving them some immediate access to ppc advertisers in europe and america (whether they develop their own PPC or develop the aboves). Overture would be pretty expensive just for gaining ground in one of Microsofts markets.

It probably depends on how they see the market - after all the msn portal is only one aspect of microsoft - they might have there eyes on mobiles etc.

[gmiller]

Microsoft doesn't typically gamble on a single plan. When they decided to take over the video game industry, they simultaneously attempted to buy Nintendo while developing the XBox. Nintendo blew that one by asking for too much money, but it's the same sort of scenario.

They may negotiate with Overture and/or other paid search companies while developing their own and go with whatever looks like the quickest road to more wealth and power. It's what I'd do. :)

The question is whether Overture will find itself a strong enough parent company to survive, or whether it'll start fading away like Nintendo.