Microsoft has quietly drifted its boat into the contextual search waters by launching its home-grown ad system in France and Singapore, with plans to test in the U.S. by the end of October. Microsoft hopes its ticket to success will be based on new categories of relevance, such as age, sex, and location. (Location-based ad triggers aren't exactly new, but Microsoft's data would be derived from registration information, not from IP recognition.) Privacy issues abound when you match a person's basic registration facts with ads on their screens, but the day is definitely coming. and relevant ads are better than irrelevant ads. Anyway, Yusuf Mehdi was quoted thusly: "The launch of adCenter in France and Singapore is a great first step to delivering on our global vision to connect advertisers to consumers in a much more meaningful way." And this: "we think we will offer advertisers better value because of the superior information we have about our audience."