In 2006, the word leaked out that ContentAds was not only in beta but going live that year and like many unofficial deadlines, the time-frame for the beta slipped and then slided again in 2007. Will this be the year that MSN ContentAds goes live or is Microsoft watching Yahoo struggle with its beta publisher program and drafting them in this race?

The recent word is that the ContentAds closed-beta is still a work-in-progress as only a few select publishers have been asked to join. Their ads are appearing on the Microsoft properties such as Windows Live, MSN Money and MSN Real Estate.

With Google AdSense dominating the field and raking in billions of dollars in advertising revenue, it’s only a matter of time until MSN, Yahoo and even Ask.com open up their publisher programs to the public. Then again, perhaps the invitation-only publisher model is attractive to the search giants right now as they have more control over the quality and content of where the ads appear.

But, from a publisher’s perspective, the more alternatives there are to AdSense the more control they can have over the ads being served on their sites and the more potential earnings are to be made.

This rollout also came with a promise to publishers to rollout an Ask.com publisher program at the end of the 2007 quarter, which did not happen. In fact, at the start of 2008 this Ask publisher program is still in beta.

Now, with the Ask CEO Jim Lanzone stepping down from the company one has to wonder if the publisher program is in jeopardy and if the Microsoft ads represent a change in direction for the fourth largest search engine on the Internet? Many publishers are hoping that this is not so.

Right now the Google Adsense publisher network is the most lucrative and largest of it’s kind available to publishers. Yahoo’s publisher program is still in beta for 3 years now and there is no hint to this ever going public. This leaves the Microsoft publisher program, which may or may not happen and the Ask publisher program, which also may or may not happen as the only major options to compete with Google.

Publishers need more options as second tier programs such as Adbrite, Bidvertiser and ValueClick cannot compete with large search engine advertising networks for PPC revenue. Internet publishers are keeping their fingers crossed that in 2008, Yahoo, Microsoft or Ask will step up to bat with rolling out their publisher programs publically to compete with Behemoth Google. Competition is good, right?