Microsoft launches MSN homepage aggregating content from ‘1,000-plus’ publishers
Microsoft has flicked the switch on its new Australian homepage msn.com.au, which is expected to have a major impact on former joint-venture partner Ninemsn’s traffic.
The new MSN offering which launched globally a month ago, has secured Optus as a launch sponsor and is aggregating content from “1,000 plus sources” for news and content around the globe, including Fairfax mastheads, Seven, Nine and Ten, the ABC, and international players like The Huffington Post and The Guardian.
Whilst Nine Entertainment Co bought out Microsoft’s share of the joint Mi9 venture nearly a year ago, Ninemsn has remained the default log out page for Hotmail, providing a substantial amount of traffic for the news site. Nine will also handle the sales for the MSN site.
In the last Nielsen Online rankings Ninemsn was the third most visited news site with a unique audience of 3.161 million. CEO David Gyngell has previously flagged traffic to the site could fall up to 35 per cent as a result of the change.
From launch MSN will be the default homepage and log out page for Australians using Microsoft products including Windows 8, Internet Explorer, Skype and Outlook, a change is expected to dramatically impact the current traffic going to Ninemsn which had been at around third in the Nielsen Online Ratings.
“In terms of the traffic currently around one third of the traffic that is now on Ninemsn will move across to MSN”, said Tony Wilkinson, Microsoft’s director of advertising and online division. “The remainder will be on Ninemsn and obvously there is a great audience there which have loved the content that has come from NEC and that will continue but we see an additional opportunity for providing an additional option for consumers so they have get content from a range of different sources.
The site claims to be totally customisable for users, featuring news, sport, lifestyle and integrate access to social media sites including Facebook and Twitter and will have an editorial team of 20, headed by Microsoft executive producer Andrew Hunter.
“From day one we are going to have the same audience we have always had but we have a set of opportunities to grow our audience and the combined audience of Ninemsn,” he said while noting that Nine’s digital division Mi9 will continue to sell ads for both Ninemsn and MSN.
Alex Hayes and Nic Christensen
Your new homepage suck and I hard to navigate. I am changing sites!
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Surely ninemsn needs to change to nine.com.au now? Essentially there are 2 MSNs in the market now?
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you suck for changing the web site I hate I, will switch if cant have classic back. stupid stupid stupid
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yousuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I’m having great difficulty with the site you changed. I can’t get my tool bar back so I can navigate.
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I like the old MSN it showed everything on one nice organized page. I hate to do this but after all these years I am going else where.
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Do not like,hard to navigate
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your homepage has missed the mark..much more difficult to navigata
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Very inefficient for us PC users: You open and get only one item of news. You cannot efficiently scan the news sections like you did before – you are stuck in endless scroll and click. The old layout permitted you to peruse up to 29 items at one time; not so in the new. What garbage; MSN says streamlined, I say short sighted as if the designer never left the 5th grade. Also, where is the “More/Maps/Directions” tab? Used to use that a lot to see where something was or to get an idea how long my drives would be. This new site is absolutely horrible. MSN lost sight of what they needed to do. CNN, BBC, and even IWON are much better designed. If they don’t bring back the efficiency of the old page somehow, no more MSN. How could they be so (dumb).
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I would like to see MSN respond to all the readers who comment here. They must love all the positive comments.
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These comments…my brain.. what did I just read through? It was the same person commenting 10 times, right?
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lol, I think Jeff is exactly the type of person the new msn homepage caters to.
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Seems to be a bit of confusion.
The Ninemsn homepage is still alive and kicking: http://www.ninemsn.com.au/?rf=true
msn.com is a new, completely separate Microsoft led homepage portal.
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I note a distinct lack of nine-based content on the msn page at the moment at least.
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I do not like new msn. will be making change I liked everything on one page.
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Hate it ! Leaving after all these years
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I HATE the new page … looking for a replacement right now.
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That’s so cool is there a way to join the publisher because we’re the magazine? Please tell us any information that will help us
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