Most of the talk recently from Microsoft has been around Bing, but what about the MSN portal? Have they forgotten about it? The answer is no, it has actually just undergone a cool new facelift.

The MSN portal is one of the top 5 most visited sites on the net (about 100 million visitors per month) and seeing as though its been 5 years since its last re-design, it was about time to freshen it up.

The re-design puts more emphasis on search, local news, video and integration with social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. It comes with 50% fewer links on the front page and a brand new MSN logo.

When you look at the old and new portals side by side you can certainly notice a difference.

The new portal appears much cleaner, with plenty of white space. Also, as you use the site, MSN will learn your content preferences and customize accordingly.

Although it sounds great, the social networking functionality is quite limited. But if you want quick access to Facebook or Twitter directly from the portal then its really easy to do. After you log in and grant access to your Twitter/Facebook accounts, the activity streams of both sites appear in the lower right of the MSN homepage.

Microsoft have advised that the new MSN will roll out globally over the coming months, however if youre not keen to wait, then you can check it our here. Please note that the look of the MSN portal may be slightly different country to country, depending on the variables unique to each local market.

For mobile phone users, Microsoft is looking to make the new portal available to you also.

So what do you think? Are you a fan of the new MSN.com? Share your thoughts below.

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