Is the End Nigh for MSN?

Microsoft’s new Web 2.0 play – Soapbox – is yet another example of how the software giant is changing its model.

There has been a realisation at Microsoft over the last couple of years that Web services will be the powerful tools in people’s lives for the next decade, just as the PC has been for the previous ten years.

What Microsoft now has to prove is that it is as capable at building market share for services such as Soapbox, as it is in designing PC-based tools. It will also be interesting to see how the software giant manoeuvres its brand in an age when it is becoming more connected with its customers.

The Soapbox service is being launched under the MSN Video brand but increasingly Microsoft is launching Web services under its own brand, bringing into question what will become of MSN.

MSN Search is powered by Windows Live on the MSN.co.uk homepage and a Google search for MSN search brings up the Live Search homepage first. The new search advertising service being offered across MSN Search is part of Microsoft adCenter –which encompasses ad opportunities across the whole of Microsoft.

Soapbox is a purely consumer play and it will be interesting to see what if any Microsoft branding it carries. If Microsoft continues to pursue its new strategy of launching Web services for consumers under its own or the Windows brand it will only be a question of time before the MSN brand comes under serious pressure.