Mobile Portal Relaunched

MSN Mobile, a version of the MSN Web portal for mobile phone users with browsers that use the Wireless Access Protocol (WAP), has been redesigned for the more advanced displays on modern mobile phones. The redesign is meant to drive mobile phone users to MSN and Windows Live Web sites and services, which would increase advertising revenue for Microsoft’s Online Services group.

The most notable improvement: the portal can now automatically detect many models of mobile phones (a complete list is available on the MSN Mobile Web site) and deliver a tailored version of the portal with the appropriate markup language, optimized style sheet, and images scaled to the size of the display. The portal itself features images, such as news and sports photos, instead of being limited to text links, and a redesigned navigation scheme lets users access services such as Windows Live Hotmail with fewer clicks.

Publicity about the redesign could draw some new users to the site, but Microsoft also hopes the redesign will help it convince carriers to make MSN Mobile the default home page for the WAP browsers they ship with their phones.