- I want to rally renewed interest for our monthly customer webcasts. Some of our recent sessions resulted in issues with connectivity, we cancelled the webcast in September, and last month our promotion was buried somewhat in all the news about the release of the adCenter Fall Upgrade. Yet, we heard from customers that these are worthwhile opportunities for developers to talk with the product team members.

adCenter API developers may be interested in the new Live Search API beta released this week by Microsoft. It offers Live Search that Web publishers can incorporate into their own Web site with great customization, and a pilot program that will allow webmasters to incorporate advertisements seamlessly into their results pages. For advertisers, it's of interest in the potential for new ways ads may be distributed. For Web publishers and Web developers,

- The Microsoft adCenter Fall Upgrade is now available in the adCenter API Production environment. We've been listening to your feedback, requests, and ideas for new adCenter API features, and throughout this year we've made significant progress in several key areas. Now, the adCenter Fall Upgrade brings you even more. Microsoft adCenter API version 5.1 )V5.

- The Microsoft adCenter Fall Upgrade is now available in the adCenter API Production environment. We've been listening to your feedback, requests, and ideas for new adCenter API features, and throughout this year we've made significant progress in several key areas. Now, the adCenter Fall Upgrade brings you even more. Microsoft adCenter API version 5.1 )V5.

This notice went out in an e-mail to API users today: Next week, the Microsoft adCenter API Production environment will undergo planned system maintenance, October 23 through October 26 in preparation for the adCenter Fall Upgrade . Although there will be no downtime, and your ads will continue to serve, there will be some delays to the editorial processing of ads and keywords. We recommend that you do not make any changes to your ad text or keywords during the maintenance.

You may have noticed that the adCenter API forums are now using a new forum technology developed by the Microsoft team that publishes MSDN and TechNet. One of the new features is a better, more obvious way to format code within the post editor. This may help eliminate some of the issues we've had with Smilies appearing in code blocks in forum posts. Use the icon to add code to your post when writing in the new forum.

Microsoft has added social bookmarking to MSDN, the flagship Web site for developers using Microsoft technology. You can now share any bookmarks of helpful posts or articles that you've found on adCenter API with other users on MSDN. For example, if you've found a particularly helpful code sample or topic in the documentation for adCenter API, you can highlight it by sharing a bookmark. If you've found a helpful article on another site, likewise, you can share it on MSDN.

Hi everyone, I wanted to post a friendly reminder that the deadline is nearly upon us for the transition to Version 5.1 of the adCenter API. Version 4 will go off service after August 14th. Please use the community and our support resources, and our support resources for any questions you have in making the transition. We will continue the monthly series of Live Meeting webcasts, with our next session at 1 PM Pacific time on Tuesday, Aug. 19th.

A question in the forums for adCenter API today asked whether the update deadline for customers to move their code from using version 4 to using version 5.1 was changing. The deadline is not changing. The deadline is the same as previously announced: August 14th. Our team has provided e-mail and telephone communications in addition to the regular webcasts. We are aware that many customers plan to make the update as the deadline approached. If that has been your plan,

In case you missed the adCenter API Version 5.1 Update Webcast last week, you can listen and view it anytime online. Download the Live Meeting recording from the following zip file: http://adcentercommunity.com/videos/API_Live_Meeting_July_15.zip For best viewing experience, use Microsoft Office Live Meeting High\-Fidelity Presentation format including video playback. Download size will be larger and may take longer time to download.

- We frequently get questions in the adCenter Community about our plans for a publisher program. We started a private pilot program earlier this year and are now inviting more publishers. Microsoft's self-serve advertising offering for publishers is still.

Reminder: Sign on for our Live Meeting today at 1 P.M. Pacific Time and ask questions about the Version 5.1 update.

In the adCenter API forums, in the thread "adCenter Reporting Service" , a developer this week asked for assistance using PHP with NUSOAP. He is trying to specifically get the KeywordPerformanceReport in PHP. Though we haven't received this question before, we know that NUSOAP is fairly common. The value of developer community is realized when users are able to share examples from similar cases. Granted, it's possible that nobody else has done this. So how about it?

Remember the deadline for updating all API code is August 14th. Please join us for the adCenter API Live Meeting session Tuesday, July 15th at 1 PM Pacific time. These monthly Live Meeting sessions give you a chance to talk with the program manager or members of the development team and ask questions. The team also provides an overview of changes in functionality and updates required. adCenter API Live Meeting Sessions are held on the third Tuesday of every month.

We received some feedback in the forums last week that the WSDLs for the adCenter API version 5.1 were not easily discoverable. I wanted to post some pointers to help make sure developers can find the information needed. Remember: The deadline for upgrading to adCenter API Version 5.1 is August 14. The WSDLs are available in our online forums: http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/ShowPost.aspx?

- We started the adCenter Community site 3 months ago as a place for customers to easily find all of our community information, blogs, and forums related to online advertising. The response from our customers, partners, and industry influencers has been.

Upgrades on Sandbox and Production services next week might result in some impacts to API customers. On Monday, June 23rd, an upgrade on the adCenter API Sandbox service is scheduled from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. PST. On Saturday, June 28th, an upgrade on the production service is scheduled from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. PST. The upgrades might impact signups, updates to accounts, and self-serve billing. Threshold or anniversary billing won't occur during this time.

I just got some info about the Microsoft PDC this fall. adCenter API Developers might be interested. http://www.microsoftpdc.com/ PDC is about the future and is the event to attend. Just read what Jon Box says, "In my opinion, if I was going to choose one technical event to attend in any year, my first choice will always be the PDC. That's where I became aware of DCOM and ASP, before they came out. That was the year when I first saw Don Box. [ more... ] Others agree.

http://en.oreilly.com/web2008/public/content/home The commercial web is now a teenagerâ€"it's been fifteen short years since Marc Andreessen released the Mosaic browser. To put this in perspective, television as a commercial medium reached its fifteenth birthday in 1956â€"the year Elvis Presley made his first appearance on national TV. National news broadcasts were still in their infancy, "As The World Turns" debuted as America's first half-hour soap opera,

One of the adCenter API developers, JohnJ, recently posted a request in the API forums for advice on using a python module to use the adCenter API. API access using python The API documentation does not discuss the use of the Python Programming Language. I checked with our documentation lead who said the team is not currently working on Python documentation. Also, I haven't seen any posts or heard of other customers who are using the API with Python. Therefore,