MSN Gets a Makeover, but Does New Look Matter?
Legacy Portal Is All Spruced up in Bid to Fend off Facebook -- and Don't Discount Its Importance to Microsoft
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- MSN is getting its first major redesign in more than a decade in a bid to dust off its late-'90s look, reduce clutter and, as Yahoo did earlier this year, give users the ability to interact with their social networks from its home page.
The question remains: Does it matter?
Less clutter
As part of the redesign, which goes live today, MSN is removing text ads and limiting display ads to a single unit on the right, and a small second ad halfway down the page. While it hasn't done a top-to-bottom redesign, AOL has reduced ad loads on its front page as well. Microsoft is also eliminating 50% of the links and simplified navigation across fewer categories.
"Consumers told us they were suffering from information overload," said MSN's general manager, Scott Moore. "One of the things we wanted to do with this redesign is surface content in a less-cluttered way."
MSN's redesign comes five months after rival Yahoo redesigned its front page, and there are plenty of similarities, as the new look incorporates more white space and integrates social-media tools. Nielsen stats show Yahoo's audience as flat since then, but in an age of Facebook, that's not a bad thing.
"For Yahoo to retain its market share is itself a victory," said Jon Gibbs, VP of analytics at Nielsen.
Once, this was the battle to be the web's front door, but now the Big Three legacy web portals -- MSN, Yahoo and AOL -- are happy when they can retain the share they have. Yahoo's $100 million global "It's You" campaign is about defending its position in the U.S. and growing it abroad.
Consider: In 2005, AOL, MSN and Yahoo accounted for a combined 30% of all time spent on the web in the U.S., according to Nielsen. Today, they account for a combined 17%. In September, the average Facebook user spends 5.5 hours on the social network per month, while MSN users spend 2 hours, Yahoo users spend 3 hours and AOL users spend 2.5 hours.
Importance to Microsoft
Still, the 17% share means the death of the portal has been greatly exaggerated, and MSN boasts the largest global audience of any of the three. Moreover, MSN is a key audience vehicle for Microsoft to drive adoption of technologies such as Silverlight, Internet Explorer, Windows 7 and search engine Bing.com.
MSN is the largest single source of referrals for Bing.com, which will get deeper integration into shopping, travel and local categories. Bing.com search queries will also inform what links appear on the home page.
"We can order content and put it on MSN with the assumption that if people are searching on it there is a much larger audience," Moore said.
Rather than produce its own content, MSN is focused on joint ventures, such as the deal with production company BermanBraun for celebrity channel Wonderwall, news content from MSNBC and NBC News and Fox Sports, and entertainment and lifestyle content from Hulu and Hearst.
RSS Feed
RSS (What is RSS?)
Tut tut, rolls eyes.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pasty-Muncher/56502401201 http://www.pastymuncher.co.uk
Remember when Second Life was the place to be? Look at it now! Except for a few mention, no one goes there.
I have an account at Facebook, and it is great to connect with old friends that I have lost touch with - like friends from high school and college. But, we did not stay in Facebook. We started sending emails and we picked up the phone!
Facebook is also a great place to upload photos and share with other friends and family members and you just need basic computer skills for that.
Truth is, there is a life cycle for every product. Case in point - Geocities which was owned by Yahoo was the place to be in the 1990s if you want to build a webpage and share your photos, etc. Now it's closed because people found WordPress, Blogger, Typepad and of course Facebook.
To me, HOORAY!!! for MSN. There is room for everyone in the world we call a web.
My grandparents have owned several VCRs over the years. I don't honestly believe that they prefer seeing "12:00" blink versus knowing the actual time.
But until somebody makes the change for them, novice users will use whatever is put in front of them.
That's the attraction to AOL. Everything is served up in a comfortable window.
Is it relevant? Not sure. My grandparents don't buy video tapes. Nor, I imagine, did they rent more than a handful every year. Most were home movies or hand-me-downs brought over by the kids and grandchildren.
How involved are the MSN users? Clickers? Buyers? Active and valuable to your advertisers? Do they actually generate content to drive up the site activity and time-on-page?
Or, are they the same crowd who watches "12:00" and never spends a dime?