MSN
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- For other meanings of MSN, see MSN (disambiguation).
MSN.gif
MSN (or Microsoft Network) is an Internet service provider and web portal (initially meant to be a parallel net to the Internet) created by Microsoft on August 24, 1995, coinciding with the release of Windows 95. The MSN moniker has since been extended to Microsoft's Hotmail webmail service and the MSN Messenger instant messaging client, as well as other Microsoft-branded websites.
With 9 million subscribers, MSN is the second largest Internet service provider in the United States behind Time Warner's America Online service with 26.5 million.
MSN.com (http://msn.com) is now the #2 most visited English website on the Internet, behind #1 competitor Yahoo!'s Yahoo.com (http://yahoo.com), due in no small part to the page being the default home page for the Internet Explorer web browser.
The word "MSN" has come to be synonymous with "MSN Messenger" in Internet slang. In other words people use phrases such as "I'll send it to you on MSN." To use MSN Messenger, the users must have a Microsoft .NET Passport.
Although Microsoft lead you to believe you need a Hotmail/MSN email account to use MSN Microsoft .NET Passport this is not the case and any email account can be used.
Affiliates
Microsoft has collaborated with many other big-business companies to create additional features on MSN.
- MSN Match — affiliated with Match.com; dating service
- MSNBC — affiliated with NBC; news service
- MSN Sports by FOX Sports — affiliated with Fox Sports; sports news service
- MSN Auctions by eBay — affiliated with eBay Inc; auctions
- MSN Overstock — affiliated with www.Overstock.com; shopping service
- MSN VirusScan — affiliated with Trend Micro, virus services for MSN Hotmail and MSN Premium services
- MSN Money — affiliated with the CNBC cable network. Has a free public chat room running since about the launch of MSN, now renamed to CNBC - MSN_MoneyII, with an MSN Groups virtual community, and also available on MSN Chat.
- MSN Encarta encyclopaedia with premium for more articles than standard.
See also
External links
- MSN.com (http://www.msn.com)
- My MSN (http://my.msn.com)
- MSN Groups (http://groups.msn.com)
- MSN Hotmail (http://www.hotmail.com)
- MSN Calendar (http://calendar.msn.com)
- MSN Spaces (http://spaces.msn.com)
- MSN Messenger (http://messenger.msn.com)
- MSN Search (http://search.msn.com)
- Start.com Version 3 (http://www.start.com/3)
- MSN.com (old site archives) (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.msn.com)de:Microsoft Network
es:MSN fr:Microsoft Network it:Microsoft Network nl:Microsoft Network ja:MSN pt:MSN zh:MSN