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New Media News Every Morning

MSN Launches its New Homepage with Bing Search in the Forefront

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You know MSN, right? It’s Microsoft’s equivalent of the Yahoo content network. If you’re a Microsoft fan and an Internet Explorer user, this must be your browser’s start-up page.  For the past couple of months, MSN announced that it was redesigning its homepage and so the site is finally being rolled out to U.S. MSN users.

And what does the new MSN homepage brings to the table? Here’s a quick rundown of its new features:

  • It’s all about Bing – the Bing search box is now larger and is located front and center of your MSN homepage to let you search as quickly as possible. The new homepage also gives you popular topics and an increased prominence of Popular searches. There’s also a new TrendWatch feature which highlights the day’s top movers on Twitter. And finally, an increased focus on editorial programming of search-related content such as videos and images.
  • MSN Local Edition – MSN also has a localized version which gives you specific information depending on your local area. The new homepage now lets you personalize MSN Local and save up to 3 cities to follow.  The new feauture also brings in HyperLocal tweets which uses Bing search to power up local tweets. And MSN Local Edition now offers 3,000 news video clips a week across 36 local markets.
  • More HD videos on the homepage – in-line HD video is now being offered on the MSN homepage with minimal buffering.
  • Social networking on the homepage – Check your Hotmail, Messenger, Facebook, Twitter and Windows Live accounts on the MSN homepage.

Originally posted on May 24, 2010 @ 5:53 pm

Yahoo’s Latest Game Plan with Farmville Maker, Zynga

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Yahoo might have scored big time with its recent deal with Zynga, the company responsible for popular Facebook games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars. The two companies have reached an agreement that will see the integration of Zynga’s social games through Yahoo’s global network.

For Zynga, this could be a viable alternative to its Facebook presence, especially since Yahoo claims of more than 600 million users worldwide across all Yahoo sites. But the question is would users be open to the idea of getting their game on via the Yahoo platform?

Most of those users who play Farmville and Mafia Wars are into these games while at the same time maintaining their social networking profiles and connections on Facebook. Most of them play these games to while away time as they wait for their friends to go online, post updates and links. In short, Zynga games on Facebook are added functionalities for a site which has social networking as the main purpose.

Comparing these to Yahoo which doesn’t have a social networking site. Users go to Yahoo to find/search for information not to socialize. So, I don’t really see these Zynga games easily fitting into the demographics of  Yahoo users.

Still, Yahoo is pretty positive that this deal would be both beneficial to both companies. Hilary Schneider, Yahoo America’s Executive Vice President tells us:

“Zynga will bring top notch social game experiences to Yahoo!, including through our open platforms such as Yahoo! Application Platform and Yahoo! Updates. Yahoo! will also continue to work with other partners, developers and publishers to bring compelling innovations and experiences from across the web to our users.”

And with this deal, Yahoo have finally laid down its social strategy and adds up to its previous partnership with both Facebook and Twitter. Would this finally bring some good tidings to Yahoo as a whole? That we will have to wait and see.

Originally posted on May 26, 2010 @ 8:10 pm