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The range of services offered by MSN has changed since its initial release in 1995. MSN was once a simple online service for Windows 95, an early experiment at interactive multimedia content on the Internet, and one of the mostpopular dial-up Internet service providers.
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MSN, the Internet service provider
MSN Classic
The concept for MSN was created by the Advanced Technology Group at Microsoft, headed by Nathan Myhrvold. MSN was originally conceived as a dial-uponline content provider like America Online, supplying proprietary content through an artificial folder-like interfaceintegrated into Windows 95's Windows Explorerfile management program. Categories on MSN appeared like folders in the file system.[4]
Then officially known as 'The Microsoft Network,' the service launched along with Windows 95 on August 24, 1995. MSN was included with Windows 95 installations and promoted through Windows and other Microsoft software released at the time. Product support and discussionwas offered through the MSN service, as well as information such as news and weather, basic e-mail capabilities, chat rooms, and message boards similar to newsgroups.
Open access to the World Wide Web was not originally included in the classic MSN service at the time of its initial launch, but Internet access was quickly offered through Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser, which wasavailable as a download from the MSN service or as part of the Windows 95 Plus!package.[4]
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MSN, the Internet portal
Internet Start
From 1995 to 1998, the MSN.com domain was used to promote MSN as an Internet service provider. At the time, MSN.com also offered a custom start page and an Internettutorial, but Microsoft's major Internet portal was known as 'Microsoft Internet Start,' located at home.microsoft.com. It served as the default home page for Internet Explorer and offered basic information such as news, weather, sports, stocks, entertainment reports, links to web sites on the Internet, articles by Microsoft staff members, and software updates. Microsoft's popular news website, msnbc.com, which launched in 1996, was also tied closely to Microsoft Internet Start.
MSN.com
In 1998, the largely underutilized 'MSN.com' domain name was reinvented as both an Internet portal and as the brand for a family of sites produced inside Microsoft's Interactive Media Group. The new site put MSN in direct competition with sites such as Yahoo! and Go Network. Because the new format opened upMSN's content to the world for free, the Internet service provider and subscription service was renamed 'MSN Internet Access' at that time.[5]
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 the 'MSN 2.0' experiment (although none of the actual shows remained), and new features that were rapidlyadded. MSN.com also became a successor to the default Internet Explorer start page, as all of the previous 'Microsoft Internet Start' web site was merged with MSN.com.[5]
Since then, MSN.com has remained a popular destination, launching many new services and content sites. MSN's Hotmail and Messenger services were promoted from the MSN.com portal, which provided a central place for all of MSN'scontent. MSN Search, a dedicated search engine, launched in 1999. The single sign-in service for Microsoft's online services, Microsoft Passport (now Windows Live ID), 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 throughout much of the next decade.
On November 5, 2009, Microsoft released a...