Microsoft's recent re-styling of its MSN.com web portal got almost everyone on Twitter tweeting about it.

I liked the fact that Microsoft improved the whole outlook of the portal by going in the direction of pure minimalism.

Comparing with the previous design, the new design for MSN.com seems less cluttered, meaning that one can view online content easier than before. I also admired how Microsoft bravely stepped away from the blue color used in the previous portal and employed white space in the new portal. The usage of white allows MSN.com to be spiced up with fresh colors, which are allocated to the navigation bar and the link buttons. 

Besides the prominent design tweaks made to the web portal, which include the modernization of the MSN Butterfly logo, one can also see that Microsoft has increased the integration between Bing and MSN.com. This will definitely reinforce Bing's rapidly growing importance and popularity in the search engine market. 

As Microsoft has always prided itself to stay relevant with the current trends, it is comforting for many fans of Microsoft to finally have the ability to browse through their social media streams, which include Facebook and Twitter, directly from the new MSN.com web portal.

It is a pity that the new MSN.com web portal is still in its preview stage.

However, this may mean that Microsoft has more to offer for its refurbished portal. We can only wait and see what other changes MSN.com will be put through. Hopefully, whatever Microsoft does, it will be satisfying for the mass Internet users. 

Mj Quek.

P.S. You can view the new MSN.com here.