Wanting to Distinguish Itself, MSNBC.com Considers Name Change

By Andrew Gauthier 

The New York Times

NBC Universal and Microsoft, the parents of msnbc.com, are holding high-level talks about changing its name, an unusual and potentially risky endeavor for the third most popular news Web site in the United States.

The two parents have not yet agreed on what to call the site. But according to internal memorandums obtained by The New York Times this week, the parents have concluded that the brand known as msnbc.com, a strictly objective news site, is widely confused with MSNBC, the cable television channel that has taken a strongly liberal bent in recent years.

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Charlie Tillinghast, the president of msnbc.com, wrote in one of the memos, “Both strategies are fine, but naming them the same thing is brand insanity.” More…

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