Andy Beal got some email about job openings at MSN relating to paid listings, which he posts at his blog:
MSN Search Staffs-up for PPC Product. A sign that MSN is planning its
own paid listings product? They’ve long had one already, the Featured Sites program. I
have no doubt in the future they’ll also move into a full-blown self-serve system in the way that Google and Overture have — but I’m not sure that these openings are a
sign that this is happening yet.
Postscript: Andy’s updated his original post to note that the email that came with the job postings mention the jobs being part of a “new search engine
initiative being launched in the near future.” Whether that is a reference to the new MSN search engine itself being launched (that definitely will happen in the near
future) or a new self-serve PPC program from MSN program in the near future remains to be seen. I wouldn’t expect a self-serve program from MSN until late 2005, at the
earliest.