Microsoft rolls out new MSN website, rebrands and updates Bing apps as MSN apps for Windows
The new MSN arrives — Earlier this month, we unveiled a first look at the new MSN. Over the past 3 weeks, nearly 10 million of you took the opportunity to test out the new site and more than 80,000 …
Context & Ripple Effects
This rollout completes a rebrand Microsoft set in motion on September 8, when it announced it would fully revamp the MSN portal and fold the Bing suite of apps into an MSN identity across platforms. The company ran the new site through a three-week public test that drew nearly 10 million participants before today's general release.
The MSN name has been recycled by Microsoft before — a mobile-focused MSN redesign shipped back in 2007 — but this iteration is broader: rather than a single surface, MSN becomes the umbrella for weather, news, finance and sports experiences on Windows, with iOS and Android versions promised in the earlier September announcement. The pickup list (Engadget, CNET, MobileSyrup, WinBeta) shows the story traveled mainly through consumer-tech outlets.
First-order effects
- Windows users' Bing-branded news, weather, sports, money, health and fitness apps become MSN apps overnight, so Bing the brand retreats from consumer app surfaces even as Bing search stays underneath them.
- MSN regains a flagship web presence with a modernized design, giving Microsoft a single consumer destination to route traffic from its apps, browser and start-page real estate.
Second-order effects
- Because the September 8 plan commits MSN apps to iOS and Android, Google's and Apple's app stores become new distribution channels for a Microsoft consumer brand — putting the refreshed MSN in direct shelf space next to Yahoo's and Flipboard-style aggregators for attention and ad inventory.
- Advertisers and publishers supplying MSN's news, finance and sports feeds now deal with one consolidated audience promise instead of fragmented Bing-app properties, shifting bargaining toward whoever controls the combined reach.
Third-order effects
- The pattern — retiring product-level brands (Bing apps) in favor of one service umbrella (MSN) while going cross-platform rather than Windows-only — points to Microsoft consolidating its consumer portfolio into fewer, larger brands under its post-2014 strategy.
- If MSN succeeds as a personalized feed, the portal stops being a legacy relic and becomes a data-and-distribution asset feeding Microsoft's advertising and search businesses, with future redesigns judged by engagement rather than nostalgia.
The trend: Microsoft is consolidating scattered consumer services under a single revived MSN brand and taking it cross-platform, using the portal as a unifying front end for its content and advertising ambitions.