MSN (meaning Microsoft Network) is a

web portal A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayin ...

and related collection of

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

services and apps for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and

mobile devices A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical ...

, provided by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...

. The Microsoft Network was initially a subscription-based

dial-up Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telepho ...

online service An online service provider (OSP) can, for example, be an Internet service provider, an email provider, a news provider (press), an entertainment provider (music, movies), a search engine, an e-commerce site, an online banking site, a health site, ...

that later became an

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

named

MSN Dial-up MSN Dial-up is an Internet service provider operated by Microsoft in the United States and formerly also in several other countries. Originally named The Microsoft Network, it debuted as a proprietary online service on August 24, 1995, to coinci ...

. At the same time, the company launched a new web portal named Microsoft Internet Start and set it as the first default

home page A home page (or homepage) is the main web page of a website. The term may also refer to the start page shown in a web browser when the application first opens. Usually, the home page is located at the root of the website's domain or subdomain ...

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Microsoft Wind ...

, its

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

. In 1998, Microsoft renamed and moved this web portal to the

domain name A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...

www.msn.com, where it has remained. In addition to its original MSN Dial-up service, Microsoft has used the 'MSN' brand name for a wide variety of products and services over the years, notably

Hotmail Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and Task management, tasks services. Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smit ...

(later Outlook.com),

Messenger ''MESSENGER'' was a NASA robotic space probe that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015, studying Mercury's chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field. The name is a backronym for "Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geoche ...

(which was once synonymous with 'MSN' in

Internet slang Internet slang (also called Internet shorthand, cyber-slang, netspeak, digispeak or chatspeak) is a non-standard or unofficial form of language used by people on the Internet to communicate to one another. An example of Internet slang is "LOL" m ...

and has now been replaced by

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...

), and its

web search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...

, which is now

Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...

, and several other rebranded and discontinued services. The current website and suite of apps offered by MSN was first introduced by Microsoft in 2014 as part of a complete redesign and relaunch. MSN is based in the United States and offers international versions of its portal for dozens of countries around the world.

History

Microsoft Internet Start

From 1995 to 1998, the MSN.com domain was used by Microsoft primarily to promote MSN as an online service and Internet service provider. At the time, MSN.com also offered a custom start page and an Internet tutorial, but Microsoft's major

was known as "Microsoft Internet Start", and was located a
home.microsoft.com
Internet Start served as the default

for Internet Explorer and offered basic information such as news, weather, sports, stocks, entertainment reports, links to other websites on the Internet, articles by Microsoft staff members, and software updates for Windows. Microsoft's original news website, https://msnbc.com (now

NBCNews.com NBCNews.com, formerly known as msnbc.com, is a news website owned and operated by NBCUniversal as the online arm of NBC News. Along with original and wire reporting, it features content from NBC shows such as ''Today'', ''NBC Nightly News'', ''M ...

), which launched in 1996, was also tied closely to the Internet Start portal.

MSN.com

In 1998, the largely underutilized 'MSN.com'

was combined with Microsoft Internet Start and reinvented as both a

and as the brand for a family of sites produced inside Microsoft's Interactive Media Group. The new website put MSN in direct competition with sites such as

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...

Excite Excitation, excite, exciting, or excitement may refer to: * Excitation (magnetic), provided with an electrical generator or alternator * Excite Ballpark, located in San Jose, California * Excite (web portal), web portal owned by IAC * Electron ex ...

, and Go Network. Because the new format opened up MSN's content to the world for free, the Internet service provider and subscription service were renamed to MSN Internet Access at that time. (That service eventually became known as MSN Dial-up.) The relaunched MSN.com contained a whole family of sites, including original content, channels that were carried over from 'web shows' that were part of Microsoft's MSN 2.0 experiment with its Internet service provider in 1996–97, and new features that were rapidly added. MSN.com became the successor to the default Internet Explorer start page, as all of the previous 'Microsoft Internet Start' website was merged with MSN.com. Some of the original websites that Microsoft launched during that era remain active in some form today. Microsoft Investor, a

business news Business journalism is the part of journalism that tracks, records, analyzes and interprets the business, economic and financial activities and changes that take place in societies. Topics widely cover the entire purview of all commercial activi ...

and

investments Investment is the dedication of money to purchase of an asset to attain an increase in value over a period of time. Investment requires a sacrifice of some present asset, such as time, money, or effort. In finance, the purpose of investing is ...

service that was once produced in conjunction with

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

, is now MSN Money; CarPoint, an

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with Wheel, wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, pe ...

comparison and shopping service, is now MSN Autos; and the Internet Gaming Zone, a website offering online

casual games A casual game is a video game targeted at a mass market audience, as opposed to a Hardcore gamer, hardcore game, which is targeted at Gamer#Dedication spectrum, hobbyist gamers. Casual games may exhibit any type of gameplay and genre. They genera ...

, is now

MSN Games MSN Games (also known as Zone.com - formerly known as The Village, Internet Gaming Zone, MSN Gaming Zone, and MSN Games by Zone.com) is a casual gaming web site, with single player, multiplayer, PC download, and social casino video games. Games ...

. Other websites since divested by Microsoft include the travel website

Expedia Expedia Inc. is an online travel agency owned by Expedia Group, an American online travel shopping company based in Seattle. The website and mobile app can be used to book airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, cruise ships, and vacat ...

, the online magazine

Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

, and the local event and city search website

Sidewalk.com The Sidewalk.com website was formerly the location of a Microsoft Corporation local information project. The website is now owned by Ask Media Group. History Sidewalk.com was first registered in 1995 by a C.D. Bell of Los Angeles, CA, as a websi ...

. In the late 1990s, Microsoft collaborated with many other service providers, as well as other Microsoft departments, to expand the range of MSN's services. Some examples include MSN adCenter,

MSN Shopping Bing Shopping (formerly MSN Shopping, Windows Live Shopping, Live Search Products and Windows Live Product Search) is a products search and discovery service that helps save time by bringing products from multiple sellers together on a single websi ...

(affiliated with

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...

PriceGrabber PriceGrabber.com is a price-comparison shopping site and distributed content commerce service founded in 1999 by former CEOs Kamran Pourzanjani and Tamim Mourad. The company partners with merchants, retailers, and sellers to provide information o ...

and Shopping.com), and the

Encarta ''Microsoft Encarta'' is a discontinued digital multimedia encyclopedia published by Microsoft from 1993 to 2009. Originally sold on CD-ROM or DVD, it was also available on the World Wide Web via an annual subscription, although later articles ...

encyclopedia with various levels of access to information. Since then, MSN.com has remained a popular destination, launching many new services and content sites. MSN's

and

services were promoted from the MSN.com portal, which provided a central place for all of MSN's content.

MSN Search Microsoft Bing (commonly known as Bing) is a web search engine owned and operated by Microsoft. The service has its origins in Microsoft's previous search engines: MSN Search, Windows Live Search and later Live Search. Bing provides a variety ...

(now Bing), a dedicated

search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...

, launched in 1999. The single sign-in service for Microsoft's online services,

Microsoft Passport A Microsoft account or MSA (previously known as Microsoft Passport, .NET Passport, and Windows Live ID) is a single sign-on Microsoft user account for Microsoft customers to log in to Microsoft services (like Outlook.com), devices running on on ...

(now

Microsoft account A Microsoft account or MSA (previously known as Microsoft Passport, .NET Passport, and Windows Live ID) is a single sign-on Microsoft user account for Microsoft customers to log in to Microsoft services (like Outlook.com), devices running on on ...

), also launched across all MSN services in 1999. The MSN.com portal and related group of services under the 'MSN' umbrella remained largely the same in the early 2000s. The sports section of the MSN portal was

ESPN.com ESPN.com is the official website of ESPN. It is owned by ESPN Internet Ventures, a division of ESPN Inc. History Since launching in April 1995 as ESPNET.SportsZone.com (ESPNET SportsZone), the website has developed numerous sections including: ...

from 2001 to 2004, and FoxSports.com from 2004 to 2014. MSN had an exclusive partnership with

MSNBC.com MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and political ...

for news content from 1996 until 2012, when Microsoft sold its remaining stake in msnbc.com to

NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. NBCUniversal is primari ...

and the website was renamed

. Since then, MSN has launched 'MSN News', an in-house news operation. As of May 2005, MSN.com was the second most visited portal websites in the United States with a share of 23.2 percent, behind

which held a majority. MSN released a preview of an updated home page and logo on November 3, 2009. It was originally expected to be widely available to over 100 million U.S. customers by early 2010. MSN rolled out the newer logo, together with a redesign of the overall website, on December 25, 2009. In 2012, MSN announced on its blog that it would be unveiling a new version of the MSN.com

on October 26, exclusively for

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for downl ...

, saying that the new version would be "clean, simple, and built for touch". Microsoft said it would be more app-like due to the speed of

Internet Explorer 10 Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) is the tenth, and by now, discontinued, version of the Internet Explorer web browser and the successor to Internet Explorer 9, released by Microsoft on September 4, 2012, shortly after the completion of Windows Serv ...

. More new features included 'Flip Ahead', which allowed users to swipe from one article to the next. MSN for Windows 8 also had new deals with the AP and

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...

Rebranding of services

Many of MSN's services were reorganized in 2005 and 2006 under a new brand name that Microsoft championed at the time, Windows Live. This move was part of Microsoft's strategy to improve its online offerings using the

brand name. The company also overhauled its online

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

and services due to increasing competition from rivals such as Yahoo! and

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

. The new name was introduced one service at a time. The group of Windows Live services used

Web 2.0 Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and ...

technology to offer features and functionality through a web browser that were traditionally only available through dedicated software programs. Some of the MSN services affected by the rebranding included

MSN Hotmail Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and Task management, tasks services. Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smit ...

, which became

Windows Live Hotmail Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and Task management, tasks services. Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smit ...

(now Outlook.com);

MSN Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant messaging client, instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger ser ...

, which became

Windows Live Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant messaging client, instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger ser ...

(now integrated into

);

, which became

Live Search Microsoft Bing (commonly known as Bing) is a web search engine owned and operated by Microsoft. The service has its origins in Microsoft's previous search engines: MSN Search, Windows Live Search and later Live Search. Bing provides a variet ...

(now known as Bing); MSN Virtual Earth, which became

Live Search Maps Bing Maps (previously Live Search Maps, Windows Live Maps, Windows Live Local, and MSN Virtual Earth) is a web mapping service provided as a part of Microsoft's Bing suite of search engines and powered by the Bing Maps Platform framework. Since 20 ...

(now

Bing Maps Bing Maps (previously Live Search Maps, Windows Live Maps, Windows Live Local, and MSN Virtual Earth) is a web mapping service provided as a part of Microsoft's Bing suite of search engines and powered by the Bing Maps Platform framework. Since 20 ...

);

MSN Spaces Windows Live Spaces was Microsoft's blogging platform and social network service. The site was originally released in early 2004 as MSN Spaces to compete with other social networking services, and re-launched in 2006 as a part of a shifting of comm ...

, which became

Windows Live Spaces Windows Live Spaces was Microsoft's blogging platform and social network service. The site was originally released in early 2004 as MSN Spaces to compete with other social networking services, and re-launched in 2006 as a part of a shifting of comm ...

;

MSN Alerts Windows Live Alerts (formerly ''MSN Alerts'') was a part of the Windows Live services from Microsoft that allowed users to get notification of time-sensitive events and information from various alert content providers. Users were able to choose how ...

, which became Windows Live Alerts; and

MSN Groups MSN Groups was a website part of the MSN network which hosted online communities, and which contained Web pages, hosted images, and contained a message board. MSN Groups was shut down on February 21, 2009, as part of a migration of online applica ...

, which became

Windows Live Groups OneDrive Groups, formerly Windows Live Groups, was an online service by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live range of services that enabled users to create their social groups for sharing, discussion and coordination. Features The service allowed ...

. Some other services, such as

MSN Direct MSN Direct was an FM radio-based digital service which allowed 'SPOT' portable devices to receive information from MSN services. Devices that supported MSN Direct included wristwatches, desktop clocks, in-car GPS satellite navigation units, and ev ...

, remained a part of the MSN family without transitioning to Windows Live. Following the launch of Windows Live, the MSN brand took on a different focus. MSN became primarily an online content provider of news, entertainment, and common interest topics through its web portal, MSN.com, while Windows Live provided most of Microsoft's online software and services. In 2012, Microsoft began to phase out the Windows Live brand, referring to each service separately by its individual brand name without any 'Windows' prefix or association.

Subsequent redesign

Microsoft launched a completely rewritten and redesigned MSN website, making use of the company's modern design language, on September 30, 2014. The new MSN portal features a new version of the logo that follows a style similar to other current Microsoft products. The website no longer offers original content, instead of employing editors to repurpose existing content from partners at popular and trusted organizations. Much of the existing content on MSN was eliminated as the website was simplified into a new

and categories, some of which have corresponding apps: * News: The latest news headlines and articles from a variety of hand-picked sources. Synced with the

News News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the tes ...

app. * Weather: Current weather conditions, forecasts, maps, news, and traffic. Synced with the

Weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the ...

app. * Entertainment: TV, movies, music, and celebrity news, as well as theater showtimes, tickets, and TV listings. Based on the former Bing Entertainment service. Also includes the

website for online casual games. * Sports: Up-to-the-minute scores, standings, and headlines from leagues worldwide. Synced with the

Sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...

app. * Money: Stock market tickers and watchlists, personal finance, real estate, investments, currency converter, and more. Synced with the

Money Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are as ...

app. * Lifestyle: Headlines, features, and other content related to style, home & garden, family, smart living, relationships, and horoscopes. * Health & Fitness: Tools and information about weight loss, strength, exercise, nutrition, medicine, and more. * Food & Drink: Recipes, cooking tips, news from chefs, cocktails, and shopping lists. * Travel: Destinations, trip ideas, hotel search, flight search, flight status, and arrivals and departures. Previously based on

Farecast MSN (meaning Microsoft Network) is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95. The Microsoft Net ...

. * Autos: Research and buying advice, auto-related news, information for enthusiasts, and coverage of auto shows worldwide. * Video: Trending and viral videos, comedy and pop culture, and videos from other MSN categories. Integrates with video search from

Bing Videos Bing Videos (previously MSN Video and Live Search Video) is a video search service and part of Microsoft's Bing search engine. The service enables users to search and view videos across various websites. Bing Videos was officially released on Sept ...

. The top of the home page provides access to Microsoft services

, Outlook.com,

Office Online Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...

, OneNote,

OneDrive Microsoft OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) is a file hosting service operated by Microsoft. First launched in August 2007, it enables registered users to share and synchronize their files. OneDrive also works as the storage backend of the web ver ...

, and

Groove Music Groove Music (formerly Xbox Music or Zune Music Pass) is a discontinued audio player software application included with Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. The app is also associated with a now-discontinued music streaming service, Groov ...

, as well as popular

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

services

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

. Signing into MSN with a

allows for personalized content to appear and to be synchronized across devices on the website and in the corresponding apps. The redesign of the website led to the closure of MSN's longtime personalized home page service 'My MSN', which was made up of customized RSS feeds, as the new website no longer supports user-specified RSS content. However, it added some customizability, allowing each category on the home page to be reordered or hidden. With the 2014 relaunch, MSN now supports responsive design and eliminates the need for a separate

mobile website The mobile web refers to mobile browser-based World Wide Web services accessed from handheld mobile devices, such as smartphones or feature phones, through a mobile or other wireless network. History and development Traditionally, the World ...

. The redesign of MSN proved positive and helped increase traffic with an additional 10 million daily visitors after two months.

Apps

The MSN web-based apps provides users information from sources that publish to MSN. Microsoft launched these apps along with the 2014 redesign of the MSN web portal, rebranding many of the

apps that originally shipped with

and

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design la ...

. News, Weather, Sports, Money, and Travel first shipped with

, while Health & Fitness and Food & Drink first appeared in

Windows 8.1 Windows 8.1 is a release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 27, 2013, and broadly released for retail sale on October 17, 2013, about a year after the retail release of its pre ...

. In December 2014, the apps became available across all the other major

mobile device A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical ...

platforms as well:

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

, Android, and

Fire OS Fire OS is a mobile operating system based on the Android Open Source Project, it is developed by Amazon for their devices. Fire OS includes proprietary software, a customized user interface primarily centered on content consumption, and heavy ...

. The apps allow users a reasonable amount of freedom to decide which sources provide information. Each app has its own color code that is used on the live tile and internally. Originally, each app brought a unified experience with the MSN website and synchronized preferences across devices. There are currently four apps in the suite: News, Weather, Sports, and Money. In July 2015, Microsoft announced the discontinuation of the Food & Drink, Health & Fitness, and Travel apps on all platforms, and that they will not be bundled with

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...

; those three apps are no longer offered. After

's acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone division, Microsoft also started bundling MSN services with its Nokia-branded feature phones, though the only supported model was the

Nokia 215 The Nokia 215 is a Nokia-branded dual-band GSM feature phone by Microsoft Mobile. The phone is available in black, white, and bright green. Specifications The Nokia 215 has a VGA camera, speakerphone, multimedia playback, MMS messaging, web brows ...

. In addition to these apps, Microsoft developed a separate set of mobile apps specifically for

MSN China MSN China was a joint venture of the global software corporation Microsoft, part of its MSN service, located in the People's Republic of China. Unlike most other international versions of the MSN portal, which have used the same layout as the Unit ...

News

Microsoft News (previously named MSN News and Bing News) is a

news aggregator In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, feed reader, news reader, RSS reader or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates syndicated web content such as online newspapers, blogs, podc ...

and service that features news headlines and articles chosen by editors. The app includes sections for top stories, U.S., world, money, technology, entertainment, opinion, sports, and crime, along with other miscellaneous stories. It allows users to set their own personalized favorite topics and sources, receive notifications of breaking news through alerts, filter preferred news sources, and alter font sizes to make articles easier to read. Originally, News included an RSS feed, but that capability was removed; Microsoft currently only allows users to subscribe to specified news sources, thereby curating news. News uses the chaseable live tile feature introduced in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. If a user clicks on the News Start menu tile when a particular story is shown, the user will see a link to that story at the top of the app when it launches.

Weather

MSN Weather (originally named Bing Weather) shows weather from a user's current location or any other location worldwide, and it allows users to define their favorite places, which will synchronize back to the web portal and across devices. Users can pin Weather tiles to the

Start menu The Start menu is a graphical user interface element used in Microsoft Windows since Windows 95 and in other operating systems. It provides a central launching point for computer programs and performing other tasks in the Windows shell. It is name ...

to see local weather conditions from multiple locations at a glance. It also offers satellite maps and has information regarding

ski resorts A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter sports. In Europe, most ski resorts are towns or villages in or adjacent to a ski area – a mountainous area with pistes (ski trails) and a ski lift system. In North ...

. The app receives its weather conditions and

forecasts Forecasting is the process of making predictions based on past and present data. Later these can be compared (resolved) against what happens. For example, a company might estimate their revenue in the next year, then compare it against the actual ...

from a variety of sources internationally. Weather uses weather conditions as the background, making it the only app that does not have a light/dark switch in Windows 10. Weather is not available for iOS; however, it comes preinstalled on the

phone from

Microsoft Mobile Microsoft Mobile was a subsidiary of Microsoft involved in the development and manufacturing of mobile phones. Based in Espoo, Finland, it was established in 2014 following the acquisition of Nokia's Devices and Services division by Microsoft i ...

that runs

Series 30+ Series 30+ (abbreviated as S30+) is a software platform and application user interface used for Nokia-branded mobile devices. The platform was introduced by Nokia in September 2013, first appearing on the Nokia 108, and has been the main Nokia f ...

; it is currently the only

feature phone A feature phone (also spelled featurephone) is a type or class of mobile phone that retains the form factor of earlier generations of mobile telephones, typically with press-button based inputs and a small non-touch display. They tend to use an ...

to have the app built-in.

Money

MSN Money (originally MoneyCentral, then MSN Moneycentral, before being rebranded as MSN Money in the mid-2000s - prior to being relaunched as a spin-off of Bing Finance) allows users to set up lists of

stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...

s to watch, follow certain

corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...

s and receive stock updates, get the latest headlines regarding

stock market A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks (also called shares), which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include ''securities'' listed on a public stock exchange, as ...

s, view real-time trading figures with a 30-minute delay, track their own

personal finance Personal finance is the financial management which an individual or a family unit performs to budget, save, and spend monetary resources over time, taking into account various financial risks and future life events. When planning personal fi ...

s, calculate

mortgages A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any pu ...

, get information on

commodities In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. The price of a comm ...

and bonds, and convert currency.

E-sports Hub

MSN Esports (often referred to as MSN Esports Hub) is a Bing intelligence AI curated webpage for the growing

esports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...

industry. users can watch integrated streams from

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

or Twitch. Microsoft's advanced AI called "Watch For" the algorithm originally made for Microsoft's Mixer is an artificial intelligence that uses Computer vision algorithms on livestreams so that it can alert the viewer of significant moments, this algorithm is implemented in the MSN esport hub. Users can also check the calendar for dates of upcoming e-sport events and tournaments or the news for updates on games and their tournament. After the creation of MSN's esport hub

acquired Smash.gg; an esport tournament platform.

Discontinued apps

Food & Drink

MSN Food & Drink (originally named Bing Food & Drink) is a discontinued

recipe A recipe is a set of instructions that describes how to prepare or make something, especially a dish of prepared food. A sub-recipe or subrecipe is a recipe for an ingredient that will be called for in the instructions for the main recipe. His ...

app that offers news related to food and drink, a personal

shopping list A shopping list is a list of items needed to be purchased by a shopper. Consumers often compile a shopping list of groceries to purchase on the next visit to the grocery store (a grocery list). The shopping list was known 2000 years B.C. in anci ...

that synchronizes across devices and the web, and a

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

encyclopedia that contains information on over 1.5million bottles of wine, over 3.3million tasting notes, and hundreds of

cocktail A cocktail is an alcoholic mixed drink. Most commonly, cocktails are either a combination of spirits, or one or more spirits mixed with other ingredients such as tonic water, fruit juice, flavored syrup, or cream. Cocktails vary widely across ...

recipes. Users can control the app hands-free, add their own recipes from physical

cookbook A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes. Cookbooks may be general, or may specialize in a particular cuisine or category of food. Recipes in cookbooks are organized in various ways: by course (appetizer, first cour ...

s or personal recipes by snapping a photo, add notes to recipes, and sort the recipes into collections. The app also collects information from famous

chef A chef is a trained professional cook and tradesman who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation, often focusing on a particular cuisine. The word "chef" is derived from the term ''chef de cuisine'' (), the director or head of a kitche ...

s and lists them according to their style of cuisine.

Health & Fitness

MSN Health & Fitness (originally named Bing Health & Fitness) allowed users to track their intake of

calories The calorie is a unit of energy. For historical reasons, two main definitions of "calorie" are in wide use. The large calorie, food calorie, or kilogram calorie was originally defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of on ...

, look up nutritional information for hundreds of thousands of different foods, use a built-in

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

tracker, view step-by-step

workouts Exercise is a Human body, body activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and wellness. It is performed for various reasons, to aid growth and improve strength, develop muscles and the cardiovascular system, hone ...

and

exercises Exercise is a body activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and wellness. It is performed for various reasons, to aid growth and improve strength, develop muscles and the cardiovascular system, hone athletic s ...

with images and videos, check

symptoms Signs and symptoms are the observed or detectable signs, and experienced symptoms of an disease, illness, injury, or condition. A sign for example may be a higher or lower temperature than normal, raised or lowered blood pressure or an abnormali ...

for various health conditions, and synchronize their health data to third-party devices such as

activity tracker An activity tracker, also known as a fitness tracker, is a device or application for monitoring and tracking fitness-related metrics such as distance walked or run, calorie consumption, and in some cases heartbeat. It is a type of wearable comp ...

s. MSN Health & Fitness formerly connected data with the

Microsoft HealthVault Microsoft HealthVault (2007–2019) was a web-based personal health record created by Microsoft, in October 2007, to store and maintain health and fitness information. This website was for use by both individuals and healthcare professionals, and ...

, but it started using a

with MSN's own

cloud service Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over multip ...

to synchronize data when it was rebranded from Bing to MSN. The app is not related in any way to Microsoft's Xbox Fitness or Microsoft Health (the companion app for the

Microsoft Band Microsoft Band is a discontinued smart band with smartwatch and activity tracker/fitness tracker features, created and developed by Microsoft. It was announced on October 29, 2014. The Microsoft Band incorporates fitness tracking and health-ori ...

), despite being similar in function.

Sports

MSN Sports (originally named Bing Sports) displayed various

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...

scores and standings from hundreds of leagues around the world, as well as aggregated sports-related articles and news headlines. Sports also allowed the user to view slideshows and photo galleries, look up information about individual players and fantasy leagues, and set and track their favorite teams by selecting various topics from the hamburger menu. It also powered various predictive features within Microsoft's Cortana

virtual assistant An intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) or intelligent personal assistant (IPA) is a software agent that can perform tasks or services for an individual based on commands or questions. The term "chatbot" is sometimes used to refer to virtual ...

. It was discontinued on 20 July, 2021 in favor of the web portal.

Travel

MSN Travel (originally named Bing Travel) was a travel search engine that allows users to book

hotels A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

and

flights Flight is the process by which an object moves without direct support from a surface. Flight may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Flight'' (1929 film), an American adventure film * ''Flight'' (2009 film), a South Korean d ...

, aggregates travel-related headlines, and offers detailed information about thousands of travel destinations. Data in the app is powered by various travel websites, including

, formerly owned by Microsoft. Other features include finding information on local

restaurants A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearanc ...

, viewing pictures (including

panoramas A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...

) and historical data about destinations, and reading reviews by previous travelers. If the user is signed in, Cortana can track flights and get hotel information through the app. MSN Travel was the only app in the suite that was exclusive to Windows. The app was discontinued in September 2015 but can still be accessed via the web. Previously, Microsoft had acquired ''Farecast'' in 2008, a website in the

computer reservations system Computer reservation systems, or central reservation systems (CRS), are computerized systems used to store and retrieve information and conduct transactions related to air travel, hotels, car rental, or other activities. Originally designed and oper ...

industry that offered predictions regarding the best time to purchase airline tickets. Farecast was founded in 2003 and collected over 175 billion airfare observations by 2007. Farecast's team of data miners used these airfare observations to build algorithms to predict future airfare price movements. Microsoft integrated it as part of its Live Search group of tools in May 2008 as ''Live Search Farecast''; Microsoft rebranded it as ''Bing Travel'' on June 3, 2009, as part of its efforts to create a new search identity. In 2009, there were allegations that Bing Travel had copied its layouts from

Kayak.com Kayak (styled as KAYAK) is an American online travel agency and metasearch engine owned and operated by Booking Holdings. Kayak's website and mobile apps are currently available in over 18 languages and more than 30 countries, including the Un ...

; Microsoft denied the allegations. By January 2013, Bing Travel results were powered by Kayak.com. As of January 2014, the fare prediction feature had been removed. As of May 2015, Microsoft rebranded the service to ''MSN Travel''. In August 2015, MSN Travel flight search pages changed from being powered by Kayak.com to its competitor

Skyscanner Skyscanner is a metasearch engine and travel agency based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The site is available in over 30 languages and is used by 100 million people per month. The company lets people research and book travel options for their trips, ...

Older mobile apps

Microsoft first offered content from its MSN web portal on

in the early 2000s, through a service called ''Pocket MSN'' (in line with its

Pocket PC A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 ...

products of the era) and later renamed ''MSN Mobile''. The original MSN Mobile software was preloaded on many

cell phones A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

and PDAs, and usually provided access to legacy MSN services like blogs (

), email (

), instant messaging (

), and web search (now called

). Some

wireless carrier A mobile network operator (MNO), also known as a wireless service provider, wireless carrier, cellular company, or mobile network carrier, is a provider of wireless communications services that owns or controls all the elements necessary to sell ...

s charged a premium to access it. As many former MSN properties were spun off to

Windows Live Windows Live is a discontinued brand name for a set of web services and software products developed by Microsoft as part of its software-as-a-service platform. Chief components under the brand name included web services (all of which were exposed ...

, and other successors in the late 2000s, the

Microsoft Mobile Services Microsoft mobile services are a set of proprietary mobile services created specifically for mobile devices, they are typically offered through mobile applications and mobile browser for Windows Phone, (operating system), platforms, BREW, and ...

division took over the development of mobile apps related to those services. In the meantime, Microsoft's MSN apps took on a more content-related focus, as did the web portal itself. Previous versions of MSN apps that were bundled with

Windows Mobile Windows Mobile is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants. Its origin dated back to Windows CE in 1996, though Windows Mobile itself first appeared in 2000 as Pock ...

and early versions of

, as well as MSN apps for Android and

devices in the early 2010s, were primarily repositories for news articles found on MSN.com. Other earlier MSN mobile apps included versions of MSN Weather and MSN Money for

Windows Mobile 6.5 Windows Mobile 6.5 was a stopgap update to Windows Mobile 6.1 intended to bridge the gap between version 6.1, that arrived in 2008, and Windows Phone 7 that was released in 2010. It was never part of Microsoft's original mobile phone roadmap, ...

, and 'MSN Money Stocks' and a

men's magazine This is a list of magazines primarily marketed to men. The list has been split into subcategories according to the target audience of the magazines. This list includes mostly mainstream magazines as well as Adult magazine, adult ones. Not include ...

called 'MSN OnIt' for

Windows Phone 7 Windows Phone 7 is the first release of the Windows Phone mobile client operating system, released worldwide on October 21, 2010, and in the United States on November 8, 2010. It runs on the Windows CE 6.0 kernel. It received multiple large upda ...

International

Microsoft's world headquarters is in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, so the main MSN website is based there. However, MSN has offered various international versions of its portal since its inception in 1995 for dozens of countries around the world. A list of international MSN affiliates is available at MSN Worldwide. Following the redesign and relaunch of the MSN web portal in 2014, most international MSN websites share the same layout as the U.S. website and are largely indistinguishable from it, aside from their content. There were two exceptions:

ninemsn Nine.com.au (formerly Ninemsn) is an Australian news and current events website, owned by ASX-listed company, Nine Entertainment Co. It was originally established as a 50:50 joint venture between Microsoft and PBL Media (now Nine Entertainment ...

, a longtime partnership between Microsoft and the

Nine Network The Nine Network (stylised 9Network, commonly known as Channel Nine or simply Nine) is an Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by parent company Nine Entertainment and is one of five main free-to-air television netw ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

that launched in 1997 (Microsoft sold its stake in the venture in 2013 and ended its co-branding with Nine in 2016); and

, an entirely customized version of MSN for

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

(Microsoft discontinued the portal in 2016, replacing it with a page that links to a number of other Chinese websites).

References

External links

*
MSN Worldwide
{{Microsoft Internet properties established in 1995 Microsoft websites Web portals Cross-platform software Windows software Windows Mobile software Windows Phone software IOS software Android (operating system) software News aggregators

History

Microsoft Internet Start

MSN.com

Rebranding of services

Subsequent redesign

Apps

News

Weather

Money

E-sports Hub

Discontinued apps

Food & Drink

Health & Fitness

Sports

Travel

Older mobile apps

International

See also

References

External links