I’m selling a lot of my unwanted furniture these days, and online buyers seem to be more interested in emailing me about things than people who see the ads at supermarkets and other places. Yesterday, I was using Hotmail to reply to an email from a prospect buyer regarding one of the items when I saw something interesting. After I had sent the email, I saw an ad from Microsoft regarding Hurricane Katrina and how to help, on the “Sent confirmation page.” The ad was supposed to be about Hurricane Katrina Relief, and how you can contribute to it. Instead, the ad itself was about having “fun” with the “‘Rich Text Editor’” that came with Hotmail and other features.

You can see the snapshot of the ad below. Clicking on the picture below will take you to the entire page [uncut] image. I have put the cursor between the words [in the picture] to show that the heading was not a separate ad and that it was related to the links below it.

If that’s the level of content related advertisement MSN thinks is suitable for websites, their new Ad center definitely needs more work [jk]. I’m sure Hurricane Katrina evacuees are not amused.

As of this post, the ad should be showed for almost every Hotmail user when you send an email [it shows after almost every email I've sent since yesterday] and if you have the “Show confirmation page” option enabled.