Microsoft Nigeria has promised to satisfy Nigerians with locally relevant content via the Microsoft Network (MSN Nigeria) portal, her brand new Company’s portal, offering news, sports, money, games, videos, entertainment & celebrity gossip, weather, shopping and greater content peculiar to Nigeria.
The portal also shows Microsoft’s flair for international news, particularly, as they affect Nigeria and the citizens.
At the official launch in Lagos on Tuesday, Awawu Olumide-Sojinrin (Mrs), acting country manager, Microsoft Nigeria said that, the Microsoft flagship MSN portal for Nigeria, apart from serving as homepage or trademark dedicated to Nigerian news, sports, lifestyle, entertainment and celeb gists, local weather, it a link to other Microsoft-related services such as Bing, Outlook and Skype.
While the site looks like its South African counterpart, Howzit MSN which is the third largest online portal in South Africa after Naspers-owned News24 and IOL, according to Olumide-Sojinrin, MSN not new to Nigerians, the huge traffic and quest to create platform for local content developers to reach the public, were part of the decisions that informed MSN Nigeria portal launch.
On his part, Dele Akinsade, developer platforms evangelism lead, Sub-Saharan Africa and Indian Ocean Islands, 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),” Akinsade said.
Also speaking, Mr. Shina Oyetosho, Microsoft’s Developer Platforms Evangelism Lead, Anglophone West Africa, maintained that the portal has future prospects for local content developers in the country.
He said: “Local content developers are important to our ecosystem, both in Nigeria and Africa as a whole. We rely on them to make locally relevant content that will generate interest among consumers and the outside world. In future, there shall be a platform on the portal for them to showcase what they have”.
With its content offering expected to grow further, the online portal has already teamed up with South African ad network, Ad Dynamo to help advertisers and brands with exposure.
In a presentation, Justin Dewhist, regional executive producer, EMEA, Microsoft Apps, Media and Publishing, added that the portal is part of Microsoft’s plans to keep windows 8 users excited, while bringing services and devices together.
He said that MSN is accessible on personal computers (PC), smartphones and feature phones. he maintained 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 serving 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 as at October 2012.
The MSN Nigeria online portal is also accessible via MSN.com which redirects to the new online portal for Nigeria (ng.msn.com). MSN Nigeria is also available via Facebook and Twitter.
Microsoft promises users a beefed up current and interesting contents on the portal.