Last year, we embarked upon a journey to build a market-leading monetization platform for web publishers. We asked you to join our Beta program and to dedicate your time, energy and, in no small measure, a portion of your livelihood to help us achieve this critical objective. To be sure, we have much work ahead of us, and supporting that is a deep commitment to deliver significant innovation to the marketplace in the months and years ahead.

This year represents an important milestone in this journey. We will greatly enhance Microsoft pubCenter BETA, aggressively increase the number of publishers participating in the Beta program and grow our media offerings. Make no mistake, we are in this business for the long haul. Developing a scalable, market-leading platform for publishers is a strategic imperative for our company.

Taking pubCenter to the next level will require your continued energy and involvement. We cannot achieve the vision for this product without your valued input and support. We sincerely thank you for your continued participation and are focused on meeting your needs and earning your loyalty.

We’ve recently launched our community forum for publishers and now this blog. The blog and forum will be the primary avenue through which we provide information about the Beta program. Tips & tricks, best practices, issue resolution, and expert advice on how to use pubCenter efficiently and how to maximize yield from your content ads placements will be the central themes covered on this blog. In addition, you will have direct access to the team who works on this product day-after-day; a forum to interact with your expert web-publishing peers; and a real opportunity to influence the future of this product.

In exchange, we ask you to help us build a robust community around pubCenter, which is critically important to our success and the success of this market for all of you. We are dedicated to making our community a success—and we understand that a successful community is only achieved through dedication, the usefulness of the engagement and grassroots involvement from you. For now, the beta and the community remain limited. We ask that you respect the confidentiality of the beta, and give us your candid comments here.

I look forward to taking this journey with all of you.

Kevin McCabe is the senior product marketing manager on Microsoft pubCenter.