Two very interesting stories about Microsoft are contained in this ZDNet article.

1. Microsoft decided to buy a Web Analytics company called DeepMetrix.  It just so happens that I have been using DeepMetrix (LiveStats.NET) for the last 18 months with all my house plans/architect clients and I’m very familar and comfortable with it.  It makes a lot of sense as Google has bought up a couple of analytics companies and Microsoft needed one also.    I have gotten to like LiveStats enough that I think it’s a good deal for Microsoft.

"The company is also announcing that it is acquiring DeepMetrix, a privately held Web analytics company. Microsoft said it plans to expand upon the company’s existing services and will build new analytics capabilities into future versions of AdCenter."

2. Microsoft gets rid of Yahoo ads for it’s PPC search engine and goes entirely with MSN Ad Center.  Now it’s 100% Ad Center ads.  That should help increase the traffic numbers on MSN Queries that show up in AdCenter’s Keyword Research tool.

"Further growth of AdCenter is key" to taking on Google, Ballmer wrote in an employee memo last week.

Microsoft is still rolling out the use of AdCenter internationally. It is already Microsoft’s sole provider of search ads in France and Singapore, with plans to begin testing with some advertisers in the United Kingdom next month.

I’m pretty happy with what Microsoft has been putting out lately with the new Ad Center Demo tools and buying DeepMetrix made sense.