Microsoft is trying to create a buzz by trying to enter into the entertainment industry. This new site will be dedicated for celebrity news and it will be part of the MSN portal. Microsoft tries to increase its user base by catering to one of the major areas of user interest, which is celebrity news and gossips. Thousands of online users search for celebrity news and gossips everyday and by catering to this group, Microsoft can increase the number of users who will be using its portal. It is also hoped that the new users who come for celebrity news might also like to have a taste of other features of the MSN portal.
The new celebrity news site is named as Wonderwall.com and it will have all the latest collection of celebrities’ photos, news items and video files. The photos will fill the page horizontally and the users can scroll for more photos. Each photo will be linked to a news item of its own. Some of the photos will pull a commentary whereas others will list an ad. Microsoft says that it has aimed at producing a magazine effect in Wonderwall. Only users have to judge whether Microsoft has succeeded in bringing that effect it has tried to bring. Yahoo already has a similar portal named omg! way back in2007. AOL too has something similar in the form of TMZ. Since Google does not have the concept of a portal for its homepage, it has probably not launched a similar service. The celebrity news portals of Yahoo and AOL don’t seem to have brought any dramatic benefit to their owners. Microsoft has to wait and see the difference the celebrity portal is going to make for the company. It will also depend on how different it is going to be when compared to its competitor’s celebrity news portals. Microsoft so far has been having just a special column for celebrity news and gossip. This new effort will try to bring together all the celebrity news that gets scattered through out the MSN networks. This will also increase the revenue for the company through the ads that will be part of this portal.
As per the business strategies of the company, it is to be understood that MSN will be promoting Wonderwall as a separate brand so as to attract visitors those who are not really fans of MSN. Microsoft hopes to keep Wonderwall, thought provoking and that is how it plans to keep itself different from its competitors’ celebrity news sites. Microsoft has partnered with BermanBraun Interactive in creating this celebrity news portal. BermanBraun is also expected to promote Wonderwall.com. So it is not just a baby of Microsoft. From the official news from Microsoft, a number of advertisers have already been contacted and signed up. Some of them include Crystal Light Beverages, Kraft Foods etc. Microsoft considers this more as a expansion plan to capture more users rather than a revenue generation plan.