I just had a very enjoyable dinner with my colleague Alan Rimm-Kaufman, founder of paid search firm, Rimm-Kaufman Group. We always have such thought-provoking conversations whenever we meet up. This evening was no exception.

At one point our conversation turned to Microsoft. What can they do about Google and Yahoo eating their lunch? Microsoft has become an "also ran" in the paid search space. They are so far behind in paid search (organic search, too, for that matter), that it's going to take a miracle for them to pull out from behind. Or not? Could they perhaps launch a devastating nuclear attack against Google, wiping out the entire paid search industry in the process? Believe it or not, the answer is "yes," and the approach would be surprisingly simple and inexpensive for Microsoft to implement...

Alan described Paul Bryant's "doomsday" scenario to me as follows (hat tip to Alan, btw)... Microsoft simply introduces a Google ad blocker to Windows (which works in IE and Firefox) and pushes it out through a Windows Update. And here's the kicker -- Microsoft turns it ON by default! Of course they will also have to block their own ads, so they don't get nailed under anti-trust laws.

Scary.

I've been evangelizing the use of RSS for marketing for a while now (like here and here). True, it's mainly just the early adopters who are subscribing to RSS feeds (about 5% of online Americans, according to Pew), but that'll change quickly and definitively once Microsoft incorporates RSS into its Internet Explorer browser.

Not surprisingly, Microsoft has *just* revealed that the next version of IE, version 7, will support RSS. If you've been sitting on the fence when it comes to planning to incorporate the RSS channel into your marketing mix, then Microsoft has just pushed you off of that fence.

A great starting point for learning about the ins and outs of RSS as a marketing channel is the ebook Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS, soon to be released in its second edition (I'm contributing a chapter on RSS & SEO, by the way). So get busy!

Hat tip to Steve Rubel for pointing out the new MSN Shopping engine, now in beta. I can't say I'm overly impressed with it. It does feel kinda like Froogle, with the price range selector on the left side, but it is way over the top with all the graphic logos on the right side. The search results pages load a bit slow for my taste. I tried a search for "canon digital cameras" and got appalling results: not even ONE of the top 10 products was an actual camera! All I got on the first page of results was lenses, cases, photo paper, a warranty, and a camcorder. And of those 10 results, they were all from either J&R Music and Computer World or B&H Photo and Video. Contrast that with the same "canon digital cameras" search on Froogle, and every single one of the top 10 results were digital cameras (made by Canon, I might add). And to top it off, the Froogle SERP loaded over 3 times faster than the MSN Shopping SERP. Microsoft, you guys have your work cut out for ya.