Flower Mound Social Club on MSN Groups

Since we don't publish the e-mail addresses of our members we have set up a group on the MSN community for the benefit of FMSC members.

You can sign-up to receive the e-mails from this group by clicking HERE.

This is a convenient way to get messages to most of our members.

In case you are not familiar with MSN (The Microsoft Network) here is a little background information for you.

MSN is a collection of Internet services provided by Microsoft. The Microsoft Network debuted as an online service and Internet service provider on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of the Windows 95 operating system. The range of services offered by MSN has changed significantly since its initial release in 1995. Many of Microsoft's popular web-based services, such as Hotmail and Messenger, were originally offered by MSN before being reorganized as part of Microsoft's Windows Live group of online services. MSN's Internet portal, MSN.com, offers a wealth of content and is currently the 7th most visited domain name on the Internet

MSN was originally conceived as a dial-up online content provider like America Online, supplying proprietary content through an artificial folder-like interface integrated into Windows 95's Windows Explorer file management program.

Then officially known as "The Microsoft Network," the service launched along with Windows 95 on August 24, 1995. The service was included with Windows 95 installations and promoted through Windows and other Microsoft software released at the time. Product support and discussion was offered through the MSN service, as well as basic e-mail capabilities, basic information such as news from MSNBC, chat rooms, and newsgroups.

Open access to the World Wide Web was not originally included in the classic MSN service, but Internet access was offered through Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser, which was available as a download from the MSN service or as part of the Windows 95 Plus! package.

In 1996, in response to the increasing relevancy and growth of the Internet, the existing MSN service was renamed "MSN Classic" and a new version was created, known as "MSN 2.0," which combined access to the Internet with web-based proprietary content in a new program known as the "MSN Program Viewer."

Microsoft promoted MSN 2.0 with a series of advertisements and promotional materials describing the service as the "next big bang." The company offered a preview release of the service on CD-ROM in the fall of 1996, which contained an MSN Preview video that described the new features of the MSN 2.0 software. The video was formatted as a guided tour of a premiere event for the new MSN. It included a handful of actors and its own music score that played during the installation process.

Once installed, the MSN Program Viewer was essentially an animated, stylized and streamlined interface on top of an Internet Explorer 3.0 web browser. When members signed in, they would be presented with a several different "Channels," which were essentially categories for the various types of content available on MSN.

Accompanying the MSN Program Viewer was MSN Quick Launch, an icon inside the Windows notification area. Both programs had menus that could be dynamically updated to guide members to MSN content and services.

The new content made extensive use of multimedia and interactive features, including Visual Basic scripting and early implementations of Macromedia Shockwave Flash (originally called "FutureSplash") for animations. Interactive multimedia content was presented in a TV-like format, dubbed "MSN shows," as part of a section called "On Stage."

The many "shows" and content sites included an interactive online week nightly game show called "Netwits," a snarky web site addressing women's issues called "UnderWire," and a regular celebrity interview and web-surfing session called "One Click Away." These new destinations supplemented web-based MSN services such as CarPoint and Expedia, which were branded as "Essentials."

While the "MSN shows" approach was unique and innovative, the content was not easily accessible by members with low-end computers and slower dial-up connections, and high-speed Internet access was not widely available at the time. An entire web site, "MSNot: The MSN2 Hate Site," originated as a negative response to the slow speed and unreliability of the software. The site also mocked the music score that repeated the phrase "too stupid to stop" during the MSN 2.0 installation process.

Ultimately, the ambitious use of multimedia content on the Internet during 1996 and 1997 proved to be ahead of its time, and the MSN 2.0 service was not as successful as Microsoft initially hoped. The company returned to the drawing board for its next MSN release.

In 1997, after abandoning the "shows" format, the MSN service was again rebranded, this time as a more traditional Internet access service. With the MSN 2.5 release in late 1997, some exclusive content was still offered through the MSN Program Viewer, but the service mainly directed members to "normal" web sites. With the MSN Internet Access 2.6 release in 1998, the MSN Program Viewer was abandoned entirely in favor of the more familiar Internet Explorer interface. Another new version of the service, MSN Internet Access 5.0, was released along with Internet Explorer 5.0 in 1999. MSN 5.0 was largely identical to MSN 2.6.

Around this time, MSN began focusing more on being an Internet portal to users of other Internet service providers. Building on the success of MSN's web-based email service, Hotmail, which launched in 1996, the MSN Messenger service for instant messaging was launched in 1999.

By the release of Windows XP in 2001 (which also brought with it Internet Explorer 6.0), content for MSN Internet Access subscribers was offered through a program called MSN Explorer (MSN 6.0). This was similar to the MSN Program Viewer in that it provided MSN web sites and content through a customized interface on top of Internet Explorer. The program was rebranded as simply "MSN" for versions 7, 8, and 9, which were released throughout the next few years. MSN 9 was the last version of MSN's special software for dial-up Internet access.

In the United States and Canada, MSN is still a dial-up Internet service provider. MSN remains the second largest Internet service provider in the United States, behind dial-up leader AOL, which had retained about 10 million subscribers by the end of 2007. MSN bundles its dial-up service with an e-mail account at MSN.com and security software such as firewall and anti-virus programs.

For broadband customers, MSN has partnered with Verizon, Qwest, and Bell Sympatico to offer high-speed Internet access. Verizon, Qwest and Bell provide the broadband connection and directly bill their customers. The included MSN software, known as "MSN Premium," offers a customized interface similar to the MSN 9 dial-up software and security features similar to the Windows Live OneCare security package. New Verizon customers may not subscribe to MSN Premium, only Windows Live. Existing MSN Premium customers who change to Windows Live may not revert back to MSN Premium because Microsoft is phasing it out.