Forget Robots. MSN Bets On Top Content

In a strategy almost the polar opposite of Aol’s “robot content mill” tactic, MSN—the other of the web “portals” reinventing itself for the new decade—will launch an online lifestyle site aimed at fashion, decor, relationships and beauty. And it’ll use original, high-quality content, reports Kara Swisher.

The new site, unnamed as of yet, will launch in the first half of 2010.

BermanBraun Interactive and the Microsoft-owned portal will run the new site, and as part of the deal, Hachette Filipacchi will contribute content.

“What’s perhaps most interesting here is the hard push for a unique editorial product, in contrast to the more aggregated approach of Yahoo and the new thrust by AOL…aimed at creating content guided by search queries and consumer intent,” Swisher writes.

BermanBraun and MSN launched celebrity-news site Wonderwall earlier this year and the site already holds “the top rank in engagement—measured by page views and minutes per visit—among celeb sites.” Wonderwall consists of content aggregated by humans, who are paid to cull the web for news as well as give Wonderwall “voice.” Presumably the new lifestyle site will also need a good editor or two.

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