Software company, Microsoft has launched MSN Nigeria and MSN Kenya through South Africa-based Kagiso Media, to provide a fully localized version of the Microsoft web portal to Nigerians and Kenyans.
Microsoft’s MSN is a serious global player in the online international publishing market and one of Africa’s largest portals with about 3.3 million unique browsers per month.
Both MSN Nigeria and MSN Kenya will host local content on various sections of its platform – all of which are shaped to suit the needs of the market in both countries that have high Internet population density.
According to Microsoft, it will initially partner with local publishers to produce original local content for MSN.
Microsoft has already launched MSN in South Africa. According to its publishers, Kagiso Media, howzit.msn.co.za has grown rapidly to become South Africa’s largest website by audience as measured by the OPA.
Speaking on the launch, Marcus Stephens, General Manager of MSN & Skype, Microsoft’s Publishing & Advertising & Online assets in sub-Saharan Africa – a division of Kagiso Media; MSN looks at the country’s Internet penetration density before engaging in any market.
“There are more cellphones in Africa than toothpaste business, which forms most of the Internet growth”, says Stephens.
“With more than 10 million Internet users in Kenya, we think that MSN Kenya is going to be an excellent platform for brands that want to market their products and services to the country’s fast-growing middle-class.
“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,” Stephens said.
Speaking at the Lagos launch, Microsoft’s Acting Country Manager, Awawu Olumide-Sojinrin explained that 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”.
MSN’s deal with Kagsio also sees Ad Dynamo providing contextual advertising on Micosoft’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 the country.
At the interactive editorial roundtable, Microsoft and Kagiso Media rubbed minds with some of Nigeria’s bloggers sharing ideas on trends in blogging in Africa’s most populous country, incorporating local content, content consumption, messaging amongst others.
The bloggers lauded the initiative and expressed their desire for content to be more localized. They also called for the incorporation of local expressions and writing styles to colour the portal.
