Microsoft has appointed former MSNBC chief John Nicol to infuse the company's MSN portal with more multimedia content and
make it more appealing to online advertisers. But with MSN rapidly being overshadowed by the company's Web-based services
branded under the name "Live," some analysts are scratching their heads as to what exactly lies ahead for the MSN portal.
Speaking to the IDG News Service on Thursday, Nicol said he has four key goals he expects to achieve this year. The first
is to add more video to the site and to allow users to make and add their own video to its channels such as Travel, Lifestyle
and Real Estate. Allowing users to create their own content for MSN is "something we've lagged behind in," Nicol said.
Another goal for MSN is to beef up the entertainment content on the site, which he said draws an enormous amount of users
to the site. To this end, Nicol plans to add more news and related content about celebrities, including a new gallery of high-quality
photos of famous actors and musicians.
Additionally, the MSN team also plans to enrich the portal's vertical channels, such as Money, Weather, News, Lifestyles and
Sports, with more content that will make them appeal to a global audience.
Finally, Microsoft aims to connect all of the various content pages and channels of MSN more closely in a way that might appeal
to a demographic that advertisers might target, Nicol said. For instance, if users look up popular music star Britney Spears,
not only would they find information and news stories about her, but they also would find links to shopping sites that let
them buy her latest record, he said.
Some of this functionality is available now, but Microsoft plans to add to it, Nicols added. Further, Microsoft plans to work
with advertisers to use this kind of connected content to target specific demographics, such as teenagers who typically are
Spears' fans.
The end result of all this investment, according to Nicols? MSN will "gracefully blend user-created content with our own created
content" to become an "outstanding platform" that complements Microsoft's plan for its Live services. Microsoft also hopes
to drive more advertisers to the site by working with them to leverage new MSN programming to develop campaigns specifically
for the products and services they want to sell, he said.
Even with these plans in place for MSN it's still rather unclear how the portal will fit into Microsoft's overall Web strategy,
said Matt Rosoff, analyst with Directions on Microsoft Inc. in Kirkland, Washington. It's undeniable MSN is fading into the
background as Microsoft builds out its set of services around its new "Live" brand, some of them a rebranding and revamping
of former MSN services, he said.
For instance, MSN Hotmail is now Windows Live Mail, while a local search tool previously called MSN Virtual Earth has been
rebranded Windows Live Local. The Live brand even has its own portal called Windows Live that allows users to aggregate and customize content in their a personalized homepage.
"What's left under MSN -- MSNBC?" Rosoff said. "Microsoft just divested itself of that, too."
Richard MacManus, industry analyst and writer of the popular Read/WriteWeb blog, said it would be difficult for Microsoft
to completely drop a well-known brand like MSN, even in light of the investment and momentum behind the Live strategy. He
sees Microsoft trying to make the distinction that MSN is about content, whereas Live is about Web-based services. This is
why e-mail, search and the former MSN Messenger product all have been rebranded under the Live moniker, MacManus said.
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