Had an email this week from the AdCenter team that featured an invite to participate in the beta release of their new content ad system. Apparently, Microsoft's version of content ads will include the same demographic targeting, geo-targeting and incremental bidding tools that are currently available on their standard paid search system. The ads will run on Microsoft owned content sites like MSN Money, MSN Real Estate, etc...

Jennifer Slegg has a good write-up on the launch, including a great catch and interpretation of the semantics used in the language of the email. Jennifer's theory is that Microsoft may also be planning to issue selected invites to non-MSN publishers that would allow them to test drive Microsoft's upcoming challenger to Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network.