I've mentioned in the past that Microsoft is generally clueless at branding. One of my worries about the entire MSN/Windows Live rebranding effort is that it is needlessly confusing to end users. It seems a bunch of Microsoft watchers have begun to point this out.

In the blog post entitled Is it Live or MSN? Greg Linden writes

I think there is quite a bit of brand confusion here.

With Microsoft slapping the Live label on everything and its mother and promoting the Windows Live brand as the future of Microsoft's web effort, I'm not sure what happens to the existing MSN properties and well-established MSN brand.

Will MSN Search become Windows Live Search? Will MSN.com redirect to Live.com? If not, will Microsoft try to maintain two brands, Windows Live and MSN? Where is the dividing line? What is the difference? Will users understand that difference?

Back in December 2005, I rashly predicted that "Microsoft will abandon Windows Live." After a bit of a ruckus about that, I elaborated by saying that there is "too much confusion between live.com and msn.com" and that "the MSN brand is too valuable to be diluted with an expensive effort to build up a new Windows Live brand."

Perhaps I am overestimating the value of the MSN brand. Perhaps, at the end of the day, it will be Windows Live that is left standing.

Either way, there can be only one. Few outside of the digerati know about Windows Live right now but, when Microsoft tries to promote this to the mainstream, the brand confusion is going to be severe. Something will have to be done.

In a blog post entitled Warning: Massive upcoming consumer confusion one of the creators of LiveSide writes

Over the last few days I've realised just how bloody the battle of Windows Live vs MSN rebranding is going to be.

 

Wakeup call #1 was when I tried to explain Windows Live to a regular home user. Thirty minutes later and my progress was minimal to say the least, though they had at least grasped that Windows Live Messenger was infact MSN Messenger with a different name. I hadn't even started on Live Favorites, Live Local, Expo and Live.com. Nor had I mentioned that MSN was still going to exist.

 

Wakeup call #2 was reading the responses to my post yesterday. Notably this and this. The general consensus seems to be one of confusion. These are technology bloggers, they should be getting Windows Live 3 months on from the original announcement and only a few months short of the first wave of launches. No wonder the marketing and advertising people I've spoken to have been commenting on the massive amounts of money that are being pumped into this transition.

 

Windows Live Sessions has been a good start in educating the early adopters, however much more needs to be done and quickly too.

I personally think that MSN is a pretty strong brand especially when it came to its communication assets (MSN Spaces, Hotmail and MSN Messenger) and we shouldn't be trying to replace it. On the other hand, I can see the need to reinvigorate the Windows brand especially in a world where "Web 2.0" and "AJAX" are the only buzzwords that seem to get analysts excited. The way I see it, the die is already cast and we now have to stay the course. It will likely be confusing for end users but at the end of the day they'll have a bunch of compelling online services which improve their Web experience. At that point, who really cares what they are named?