Microsoft’s Live Spaces initiative is getting a lot of buzz today, and rightfully so. The mass-market offering marries instant messaging, social networking (sort-of), Microsoft gadgets and blogging into what could be Cup-a-noodles of social apps. Techcrunch notes that Microsoft is phasing out the MSN brand, in favor of the “Live.”
This is a very smart move on part of Microsoft. MSN as a brand is tired and needs to be retired. It conjures up images of an also ran brand. Live, however, seems fresh and new. Online user behavior seems to show precisely that. (Windows) Live-branded services are doing much better for Microsoft that those weighed down by the MSN brand. A quick analysis of data on online member communities/destinations collected by Nielsen/Net Ratings (N/NR) shows that.
In US, N/NR says Windows Live had 29.8 million unique visitors, second only to MySpace, which attracted 36 million unique visitors, in the month of June 2006. MSN Spaces wasn’t in the top ten. In other countries Windows Live brand is doing even better. In Brazil, for instance, Windows Live had 7.6 million uniques, while MSN spaces had mere 1.7 million.
The most notable one is Australia, since Live Spaces had been in beta testing in that country, where some elements of Live Spaces were tested as part of MSN Spaces offering. (Thanks Dare who has a great post on the launch!) While it is hard to draw sweeping conclusions, it does seem when it comes to post-PC world, Microsoft is better off retiring its old MSN brand, and usher in the new Live era. (The complete comparisons are after the fold.)
MSN is a pre-programmed content brand while Live.com is all about customizing and tweaking your own experience (MS speak).
There will continue to be some MSN properties, but the majority of the services will move to Live. Three big sites have not made the move quite yet: video, music, and finance.
What the heck do those stats mean? What do they mean by Windows Live? Are they comparing the *.live.com domain with the *.msn.com domain? Are they comparing Windows Live branded apps against MSN branded ones?
Either way, the stats seem pretty bogus.
PS: Windows Live Spaces was not in beta testing in Australia. Some of its features were being tested as part of MSN Spaces.
I think you are getting your figures mixed up, though it is not your fault. Nielsen have made a bit of a mess of the transition from MSN to Windows Live. The figures you are quoting essentially include MSN / Windows Live Messenger now. This was because for Nielsens June data, they changed the MSN Messenger category to include Windows Live.
The actual live.com domain gets very little traffic, and would probably remain to do so until IE7 is released and pushes it as a default.
The Windows Live figures for the UK (which I work in so am certain on), include all people who have used the domain http://login.live.com, which as you may know is the URL for the replacement to Passport (Live ID). So those figures probably include instances of Hotmail/Live Mail, Messenger logins etc. We are still awaiting verification from Nielsen on this but it definitely looks that way.
jamie,
good points. we are circling back to neilsens to get a clearer picture and hopefully post an update.
on the live.com, the domain seems to be getting more and more traction, according to ipwalk, another company which tracks all this data. http://www.ipwalk.com
dare, thanks for the australia correction. posted an update.
As Jamie said, I think the Windows Live numbers are distorted by Microsoft’s decision to switch MSN logins and IM/e-mail to the Live domain.
Dare Obasanjo had a post a while back talking about this, “Misinterpreting Alexa Traffic Data for Live.com“:
http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=f52da4e7-d690-4f68-8b00-b47535c892e5
dare, also those stats are for visits to the specific domains. this was part of an “online communities” for individual countries they had put together. it included all sorts of communities including social networks such as bebo and myspace and facebook, and yahoo geocities and msn groups and other such sites.
even if the numbers aren’t the most accurate, the Live.com is reflective of a new era at Microsoft, and perhaps is a better brand going forward. I mean this is the kind of brand exercises non-tech companies always do, and benefit from it.
I agree on that. MSN is tired, stale and a brand screaming 90s to me. But that brings in the money in terms of Microsofts online business. I dont see where the monetisation from Live.com will come from just yet. Certainly, the homepage has content which the user brings to them via RSS feeds or Gadgets. Where is the opportunity to make money on this? At least with Search or MSN content we can tailor the ad campaigns to the respective channels or query results to maximise advertiser value.
Its something the online services group, Ozzie and the rest of them will have to figure out. At best I see Live being a means to make Microsofts online operations sticky, keeping users on MS domains and thus giving us more oppotunity to aim ads at them, sign up for premium services etc. Only way to do this is to make our stuff real engaging. If you check the Nielsen stats, the average MySpace user spends far longer ont he site per month than on MSN Spaces, which draws people in for around 10 minutes according to the June data.
jamie,
i was at the windows live debut conference in san francisco and one thing which became obvious and clear to me was that they were banking on online advertising, which is interesting because they really don’t have a track record of doing that stuff. it is strange to see them go in this direction. i bet they layer some paid services etc for premium users on top of this “live” offering.