As a step towards developing its own online advertising system, Microsoft today unveiled the Microsoft adCenter Incubation Lab (adLab) during its adCenter Demo Fest, an exposition of industry-leading research and innovation in the field of digital

advertising technology from Microsoft researchers.
adLab, a joint effort between MSN’s adCenter and Microsoft Research, is a state-of-the-art lab in Beijing with a mission to research and incubate advanced technologies for MSN’s adCenter, designed to provide advertisers with rich targeting capabilities based on audience intelligence information and give consumers a more relevant online experience.
adLab’s top-notch group of more than 50 researchers will develop advertising solutions that connect marketers with consumers in more relevant, innovative ways unseen in the industry before now.
These prototypes hold the promise to change online advertising dramatically in areas such as paid search, behavioral targeting and contextual advertising. Also shown were projects addressing areas of incubation in their earliest stages of investigation, such as ad bar-code readers, social network mining, and video and large-display ads.
“The exciting work being shown at adCenter Demo Fest and the new Microsoft adLab reflects Microsoft’s commitment to innovation in the field of ad products,” said Tarek Najm, general manager of adCenter at Microsoft. “The Microsoft team of top researchers in this field is unsurpassed and certain to produce compelling advances that will impact and ultimately change the game in online advertising. With this long-term applied research, we will continue to help improve advertisers’ return on investment by delivering rich audience intelligence information and enabling simple and complete control over all aspects of the advertising campaigns.”
One of the innovative technologies highlighted at the event was video hyperlink ads, which can detect product items displayed on a television screen during a show or commercial, allowing consumers to zoom into products featured on the television screen and click through to detailed product descriptions and information on where the products can be bought.
The adLab will be headed jointly by Ying Li, Ph.D., of Microsoft adCenter in Redmond and Jian Wang, Ph.D., of Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing, and will consist of a team of dedicated scientists with specializations in the areas of data mining, information retrieval, statistical analysis, artificial intelligence, auction theory, visual computing and digital media. Together, this group of internationally renowned researchers has published more than 80 articles on a range of topics including information retrieval, data mining, visual computing and smart devices.