Well, it’s been a while since Microsoft decided not to proceed with the RealNames Keyword product in the browser. Now …. 5 months later, MSN has announced that MSN 8 – the one with the $300m advertising campaign – will include Keywords. Suprise suprise!

Danny Sullivan – on his SearchEngineWatch site says the following:

“There is a new MSN Keywords system that will roll out with the MSN 8 Explorer browser, expected to be made available later this month. Similar to AOL Keywords, these are a single words or short phrases that work only for those within the new paid MSN service. They will deliver people to particular pages that Microsoft has selected, such as “news” leading to MSNBC. The terms are not sold, limited in number and do not work in Internet Explorer, Microsoft says.”

The full article is at http://www.searchenginewatch.com/sereport/02/10-namespaces.html

So, when will this “similar to AOL Keywords” technology become a paid for service? Who knows – but I’m willing to bet it will.