Jan. 4, 2007

Nearly 10,000 of you voted about what you might like to see more of on MSN this year, choosing among video, photo galleries, chats, blogs and other features.

The clear-cut winner: galleries, at nearly 60%.

I agree, exactly for the reason shared eloquently by Andy from Houston, who wrote, "Photos just bring out all of this expression and emotion." 

In 2006, galleries that garnered a lot of looks included ugliest sports uniforms, Oscar fashions flubs, World Cup beauties and the Chernobyl anniversary. Folks have liked photos since long before Mathew Brady's Civil War shots or the success of Life and Look magazines. Even the New Yorker – cartoon devotees/zealots through the mid-1990s – is stronger now for selectively supplementing its prose with photos.

Evolving the editorial experience and making the most of what the medium can do is our focus at MSN. In fact, January kicks off an intense push on new initiatives. Among them: improvements to our slide shows.

Already a Windows Live image search of any term allows you to generate a gallery of your choosing, albeit not a refined experience. Our twofold approach is to offer a blended experience, one that delivers on crafted content and one that lets you create your own.

Hence, the advancements in our photo galleries – per a repeated request from editors and users alike – show that we are listening to your feedback. In fact, we enjoyed letters from more than 2,000 people, impassioned by the Christmas-vs.-holiday debate. Read more of them here – and send off a new letter, too.

The above links to popular galleries from 2006 preview an upcoming topic: explaining the N behind MSN. The Microsoft Network is a collection of channels, staffed by MSN editors, and affiliates, such as our partners at Fox Sports and Slate who created the sports and Chernobyl galleries, respectively.

One of our goals for 2007 is to help you direct your inquiries and insights to those who need to know or who can help you fastest, whether that's a division of Microsoft, an editor on the MSN portal staff or a partner, like MSNBC or CNET.

Confused? We hope you won't be, in time. Meanwhile, jot off a letter if you have a particular question about what, why and how we do things. And yes, I will address complaints that our content leans left and that we focus too much on various bands, including the Dixie Chicks.

And if you've got time to troll more galleries, several are available in MSNBC's year-end retrospective and the MSN Entertainment team's photogenic look at 2006.