MSN China was a joint venture of the global

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

corporation

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, Washin ...

, part of its

MSN 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 ...

service, located in the

People's Republic of 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 ...

. Unlike most other international versions of the MSN portal, which have used the same layout as 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 territori ...

since 2014, MSN China utilized a unique design and had a separate editorial division. In 2010 MSN China announced a partnership with

Sina Sina may refer to: Relating to China * Chin (China), or Sina (), old Chinese form of the Sanskrit name Cina () ** Shina (word), or Sina ( ja, 支那, links=no), archaic Japanese word for China ** Sinae, Latin name for China Places * Sina, Al ...

to integrate each other's services as a reaction towards one of Mainland China's largest internet companies,

Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. () is a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the wo ...

. In 2016 Microsoft announced that they would discontinue the MSN China website on June 7 in favour of

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 ...

services and would redirect their portal to a number of Chinese websites and their search engine,

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 ...

. However, the website is still active even after June 7, 2016 as of December 9, 2021, after being taken over by another operator.

MSN Juku

In November 2009, MSN China launched an Internet application called ''MSN Juku'' in beta. Commentators described it as a "

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 ...

-style"

microblogging Microblogging is a form of social network that permits only short posts. They "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links",. Retrieved June 5, 2014 which may be the major reason for ...

service, although MSN China rejects that description. From the beginning, observers noted similarity between the MSN Juku

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

and that of established microblogging service

Plurk Plurk () is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (otherwise known as plurks) through short messages or links, which can be up to 360 text characters in length (as of 2016). Updates are then shown ...

, which was blocked in China in April 2009. On December 14, 2009, the official Plurk blog posted an accusation that MSN China plagiarized about 80% of Plurk's original code, as well as elements of their CSS and unique user interface features. Microsoft stated in a press release that it looked into the accusations. The next day, Microsoft confirmed that MSN Juku (which, it stated, had been developed by a Chinese contractor) did contain copied code, and stated that the service would be indefinitely suspended.

Mobile apps

Microsoft lists their Chinese MSN apps for the

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 l ...

platform under ''Microsoft Online'' (alternatively known as ''MSN China'' in Google Play and ''Shanghai MSN Network Communications Technology Company Limited'' in iTunes) lists several applications that are and aren't MSN branded such as the Bing Dictionary (必應詞典), Bing Reader (必讀), Star-Bing (追星必應), Bing Images (必應圖片), Bing Maps (必應地圖), Bing Mind-Reading Robot (必應問答), Chinese MSN, msnNOW,

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

, Xiaoice (微軟小冰) and several others in the

Windows Phone Store Windows Phone Store (originally known as Windows Phone Marketplace) was an app store platform, developed by Microsoft corporation for Windows Phone letting users installing various apps on their device. It initially launched with Windows Phone ...

and on other platforms.

References

External links

* Blog hosting services Chinese websites MSN Defunct social networking services {{china-stub