Tech Shout!

MSN announced that it will be unveiling its adCenter self-serve advertising channel to U.S. advertisers for a duration of three hours beginning at 12pm Eastern Time on Monday. During that time, advertisers would be able to create an account for a $5 one-time fee.

adCenter was released in a closed beta test in the United States in October 2005, following victorious launches in Singapore and France in September 2005. In January MSN had said that it intended launching the initiative by June 2006.

MSN is gradually converting its search engine ads over to adCenter, and by launch in June, all ads on the service would be handled by the program. Other company Web properties will be added to adCenter throughout the year.

Microsoft’s MSN Search is ranked third in terms of visitors, behind both Google and Yahoo. The company has admitted that it joined the search engine race late, and has spent a lot of time trying to create its individual stand by launching services that sets it apart from the rest.

The company also hopes that its adCenter product will draw advertisers away from competitor Google’s AdWords, which is dominating a larger share of Web advertising. However, adCenter differs from Google’s product as it is currently only projected for Microsoft properties, instead of any Web site running Google AdSense.