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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.

New MSN Site Offers Bing, Social Networks, News and Location

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Big announcement today from MSN, Microsoft’s content network property, as big as their homepage which has just unveiled its new look and feel.  If you’re in the U.S. and you visit MSN from time to time if not on a daily basis, you’ll notice that the website is kind of different right now. Basically, MSN now focuses on four main deliverables – news, social networking, local networking and of course – Bing search.

Actually, the redesign has began as early as November 2009. MSN has been gathering feedback while answering those meaningful ones by way of updates to the site. In fact, they have made 30 updates since November, all courtesy of MSN users who’ve sent their feedback to MSN.

So, what are the new features of the MSN site? Here are the major ones:

It’s all about Bing – Increased Bing search box prominence, new TrendWatch highlighting  the day’s top movers on Twitter, enhanced editorial programming of search-related content, increased prominence of popular searches and testing of search history features

Localization features – Now includes hyper-local tweets, myCities, 3,000 news video clips from 36 local markets delivered in partnership with NBC Local Media and Hearst TV.

Media and News – The homepage now has more media and news items including HD video viewing.

Social Networking – Social networking module of the homepage is now default to Facebook, being the most frequently used, according to MSN.

Basically, MSN is going into the same content-rich homepage design of Yahoo’s content network – something that delivers the goodies to users all in one place. Hopefully, this sparks more interest into the site and converts to more monthly eyeballs for MSN.