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
theMSN 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.
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