The visualizer about page says this of the website:

VISUALIZER BY MSN PLAYS 47 SONGS AND SHOWS MILLIONS OF PICTURES. THE LYRICS WITH A TOTAL OF OVER 11’000 WORDS EXPLORE FLICKR AS TAGS FOR IMAGES, THE DYNAMIC SELECTION WITHIN THE SEARCH RESULTS HAPPENS RANDOMLY. EACH TIME A SONG IS BEING PLAYED, VISUALIZER BY MSN CREATES A COMPLETELY NEW AND UNIQUE VIDEO CLIP. ENJOY IT AND USE IT: WRITE YOUR OWN WORDS, PLAY IT WITH A RANDOM SONG AND SEND THE SOUNDING MESSAGE TO YOUR FRIENDS. IT’S GREAT, IT’S FUN, IT’S HIGHLY PERSONAL.

The site has been tailored for IE9 and I believe uses HTML5 to play the music and transition between the photos.

This is not only a fantastic way to view photos from Flickr but it’s equally a great visualizer for a music player. I like the way Zune shows a collection of album art and photos of the artist when playing music but I think that this might be an even better way of showing images when playing music. My only complaint is that when lyrics come in thick and fast the photos from Flickr cycle through far too quickly , it would be nice if it missed out some words and had a slightly longer transition between the photos.

This is well worth checking out and I hope to see Microsoft make further use of this in other products.

They also go on to say that “more fresh content is now displayed in the slideshow at the top of the page, which will update frequently as the news broadens through the course of the day”. In addition to those changes they have also added a time stamp to content and also a poll on the homepage. That all sounds good to me but when I had a quick look over the comments it seems that most people do not like this change at all.

Only 10% of the comments the article has received have been positive. As you can see below the most recent comments all want MSN to return the UI to its previous state.

I don’t use MSN enough to be able to comment on the changes but do any of my readers have an opinion about these changes? I’m going to keep a close eye on this and see what MSN do about this.

After having a quick look at some of the featured things on the special birthday page its quite amazing how much has happened, changed and even stayed the same over the past 15 years.

Another way the site has marked their birthday is to question over 100,000 people in the UK about the future. The survey was called The Pulse of the Nation and look at what people thought Britain would be like in 2025. There were some interesting results to come out of the survey with “over half of Brits predict they will be richer in 2025 but 74 per cent think they will be working for longer, with an increase in retirement age to 70”.

Below is a highlight of some of the results from the survey:

• 49 per cent think unemployment levels will have risen by 2025
• 48 per cent think Prince William will supersede Prince Charles to be King
• 22 per cent think humans will have set foot on Mars
• 40 per cent of men think ‘Moob’ surgery and genital enhancement will be commonplace
• 41 per cent of women think they will be able to try on clothes virtually before purchasing them online

Other results from the survey show that a quarter of Brits believe a new party will form the Government in 2025 and nearly half (48 per cent) think Prince William will bypass Prince Charles to be crowned King of England and 13 per cent believe the monarchy won’t exist by 2025. Looking to space, one in five (22 per cent) think humans will have set foot on Mars and 4 per cent think there will be a permanent human base on the red planet by 2025. 9 per cent even think a colony of humans will live in space by then.

Here’s some tech related statistics from the survey more than half (53 per cent) believe that television sets will still exist but watching TV via the Internet will be favoured. In fact, 26 per cent of Brits think TVs will be obsolete by 2025 and traditional TV will be superseded by Internet viewing. That is certainly a trend I see happening. 40 per cent of those polled think that if the BBC TV Licence were to be abolished it will mean more imported shows-and fewer British programmes – in 2025. I agree with this, I hope the License Fee and BBC are still in existence by 2025. 39 per cent are most worried that reality TV will dominate British screens in 15 years, while more than a quarter (26 per cent) are worried that Jeremy Kyle will still be on air. Again I fear that this might be true too.

It would have been interesting if MSN had done a similar survey 15 years ago to compare what people thought life would be like now to how it actually is. I look forward to seeing how right the British public were about these topics in 15 years.

MSN UK has certainly had an interesting journey thus far with services being added to the brand then moved away with at least one thing still wrongly being called MSN, Windows Live Messenger. MSN is now a media, entertainment and news portal, I believe the most visited in the UK and I have to admit I was never much of a fan but over the last year or so there have been quite a few times I have visited the site. I especially like the MSN Video Player UK Facebook page which often shares hilarious videos.

Its been a busy year for MSN this year with a refreshed logo and even a couple of Windows Phone 7 apps and I look forward to what else MSN will add over the next year (and 15!).

Have you been a MSN reader from the beginning? Do you remember MSN Messenger? Do you read MSN now? If so leave a comment. Also do leave a comment with your opinions about people’s predictions for the future, I’m sure some of my readers’ will have ideas about what life will be like in Britain in 2025.

The site will allow users to sign in to Windows Live, Facebook and Twitter and receive all the latest news from those sites right on the MSN homepage. There will also be a continuation of the focus on Windows Live Hotmail and Messenger well as Internet Explorer all right at the top of the page. Users familiar with the US site will notice the content boxes, highlighted by the blue lines, which allow for easy switching between the tabbed sections of the information boxes, making it much easier for people to read the content they want to without leaving the page.

Another aspect of the new design to note is the prominence of the MSN Video Player, Microsoft answer in the UK to Hulu in the US, which although doing well has suffered from lack of discoverability. The MSN logo also appears to be being changed to match the US version.

After first seeing the image of the new design for the US version of MSN I have been eagerly waiting for a redesign of the UK site, that finally seems to be coming albeit in only a few areas.

I will let you know if I hear anything more official from Microsoft about this.

New: I have just been sent the Press Release about the MSN update and the claim the MSN page is the UK’s “most popular news and entertainment portal homepage” with 20.6 million unique visitors each month. They claim that the new site “is faster to download, adds more video content, more news and adds access to Facebook and Twitter as well as Microsoft services like Hotmail and Windows Live”.

They have identified some of the most important new features as:

• Social media – an integrated social networking section that means users can access and update Windows Live, Facebook and Twitter directly from the homepage
• More news – an innovative news info-pane, with top headlines, breaking stories and weird and wonderful tales from around the world
• Bigger and better Hotmail – Hotmail inbox from the homepage, allowing them to be updated when new mail has been received
• Larger images – a new slideshow at the top of the homepage that provides consumers with access to up-to-the-minute news, exclusive editors’ picks and the latest new videos at the click of a button.  Sports, Cars and Money also have a new spot on the homepage, while the simple alphabetical navigation bar locates MSN channels instantly
• New brand – a sleek new MSN logo that has been rolled out across the UK site, synching up with the new global brand of MSN
• Content – all the best from user favourites, such as Entertainment, Life & Style, Tech & Gadgets, Shopping, Him, as well as personal essentials like Local, Weather, and Horoscopes.
• Video – the ability to watch clips from within the homepage, plus access to the latest HD videos and VOD with MSN Video Player

Perhaps most importantly you can check out the new features of the revised MSN site at http://www.tourmsn.co.uk/, enjoy.