C|Net: Sputtering growth sparks changes at MSN

MSN's subscriber tally remained steady at about 9 million in the first three months of the costly marketing push, the software giant disclosed last week. That figure leaves it well behind AOL, which gave a subscriber figure of 35 million at last report and which will update that number when parent company AOL Time Warner reports fourth-quarter earnings on Jan. 29.

MSN's growth is stagnant. Imagine that. AOL is the wrong target for MSN, in my opinion, because The Internet Killed AOL.

By the way, MSN is stagnant after 3 months of their $300 million advertising campaign they announced in Q4 of last year. They're shifting the focus of their advertising from the $21.95 dial-up service to the $9.95 "BYOA" (Bring Your Own Access) plan to try and nab more subscribers in the broadband arena.

Sounds like a good time to start targeting people based on their ISP or on their Second Level Domain, doesn't it? I wonder if the agency has thought about that?

I'd recommend they pull all of their TV dollars and blanket the internet users that are already on broadband with nothing but MSN ads for the next 6 months. It'd be cheaper and probably more effective. But those are just my thoughts…