Microsoft to revolutionise media landscape with MSN Nigeria portal

As part of measures to expand the Microsoft Network
(MSN) Portal to deliver locally relevant news that are
tailored to address local users in Nigeria and Africans in
diaspora. Devices and Services Company, Microsoft has
partnered with Kagiso Media to officially unveil the MSN
Nigeria Portal in Lagos. The launch had a line-up of
different activities including a media conference and
editorial roundtable session.

Speaking at the media conference, Microsoft's Acting
Country Manager, Awawu Olumide-Sojinrin said the MSN
Nigeria portal features the trademark MSN homepage
dedicated to Nigerian news, sports, lifestyle, entertainment
and weather as well as links to other Microsoft-related
services such as Bing, Outlook and Skype.

According to Justin Dewhirst, Area Executive Producer, CEE
& MEA, Apps Media & Publishing Microsoft, "MSN is about
bringing contents together in one portal and Kagiso has
built the expertise for great experiences on the Windows
operating system".

He added "MSN is accessible on personal computers (PC),
smartphones and feature phones. He reiterated that MSN
Nigeria is a way to synchronize great people with great
technology in the process of building a greater content
experience.

The deal with Kagsio also sees Ad Dynamo providing
contextual advertising on Microsoft's network of sites,
including Windows Live Hotmail with over 800,000 users in
Nigeria and Windows Messenger with over 820,000 active
users in Nigeria."

During the demonstration of the portal, Dele Akinsade,
Director Developer Platform Evangelist, West East and
Central Africa Microsoft said that already, MSN Nigeria
syndicates local news in Nigeria from the News Agency of
Nigeria (NAN), as well as publishers such as BangShowbiz.

"It also features dedicated pages for news (national, African
and world news), sport (local and world sport news),
entertainment (local and global celebrity entertainment
news) and lifestyle (including fashion, travel, tech &
gadgets, motoring)."

Also speaking, Marcus Stephens, General Manager-
Publishing, Kagiso Media said Kagiso Media has been
partnering with Microsoft since 2010 to share the vision for
building communities with local talent content providers.

"There is a growing hunger for localised content across
Africa as undersea cables, mobile broadband and falling
Internet access costs bring more people online. We aim to
address this need with the same formula of locally relevant,
easy to digest content that we offer our audience in South
Africa," he said.

At the interactive editorial roundtable, Microsoft and Kagiso
Media rubbed minds with some of Nigeria's finest bloggers
sharing ideas on trends in blogging in Nigeria, local
content, content consumption, messaging amongst others.

The bloggers lauded the initiative and expressed their
desire for content in Pidgin English which according to them
is a unifying language spoken by all. They also called for
the incorporation of local expressions and other trends into
the writing styles to spice up the portal with the Nigerian
flavour.

The MSN Portal team appreciated contributions of the
bloggers and also solicited their partnership in making the
portal truly Nigerian.
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN