The Future of MSN

Despite the emphasis that Microsoft is placing on its new Live initiatives, the MSN brand is too valuable to discard completely: several MSN sites are among the traffic leaders in their categories, making them important to Microsoft’s goal of capturing more online advertising revenue. Moving forward, Microsoft hopes to convince users of each MSN site to spend more time on other MSN sites by linking them better and improving content, and to help advertisers target specific demographic groups more accurately. MSN could also be the focus of new advertising-supported business models for Internet access.

MSN: What’s Left of the Brand?

For almost 10 years, MSN was the umbrella brand for Microsoft’s consumer-oriented Web sites and online services. Since Oct. 2005, however, Microsoft has rebranded many MSN sites as Windows Live or simply Live—for instance, Hotmail became Windows Live Mail, MSN Messenger became Windows Live Messenger, and MSN Search became Live Search (without “Windows”). In addition, most of Microsoft’s new consumer online services, such as Expo (an online classified advertising service), use the Windows Live brand. In addition, the business segment formerly known as MSN—one of five segments for which Microsoft reports quarterly financial results—has changed its name to Online Services.