ESPN's deal with Xbox continues trend of new distribution methods

This week’s announcement that ESPN had partnered with Microsoft to bring live and on-demand sporting events to Microsoft’s Xbox continued the trend of alternative distribution methods for live sports video.

The distribution of sports content has gone from TV to online streaming on PCs and laptops to wireless devices like smartphones and tablets. Now it is aimed for gaming consoles and other set-top boxes, in one way bringing the cycle full circle back to watching on a TV.

Xbox will reportedly carry more than 3,500 live and on-demand sporting events, bypassing traditional cable providers in the process. The live events will come courtesy of ESPN3.com and will include MLB, NBA, tennis, golf, soccer, college football and college basketball. Noticeable by their absence are the NFL and NHL.

MLB.com announced a similar deal with Sony in April to bring MLB.tv to  PlayStation 3 game consoles and the baseball package is already available on set-top devices from Roku and Boxee.

Revamped MSN homepage embraces changing digital environment

MSN rolled out a new homepage Wednesday. Or more precisely, it’s in the process of rolling it out to the site’s 100 million users.  MSN’s initial redesign began last November when it was road-tested for a small segment of its users to solicit feedback.

In addition to revamping its design - its first serious makeover in a decade - Microsoft added a number of new features. Prominent among those features is a large push for Bing, Microsoft’s search engine. With Bing showing steady growth in the share of search queries, this comes as no surprise.

The redesign also incorporates a new module for local news, another fast-growing segment of MSN’s site traffic. Additionally, MSN has aggregated its social networking, with popular trend watches, Hotmail, Twitter and Facebook tabs.

All of this isn’t to say the new MSN homepage is a success or failure. Change isn’t easy for a lot of users, and the loss of the MSN’s trademark blue background alone will be enough to cause some initial anxiety.