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MSN Video, Microsoft's free online video service, has a new version out. The main new features are the redesign of the site, which should make easier to search and discover new videos, as well as the ability to view a video and browse other videos at the same time, using a split-screen format.
Advertisers now also have a new way of inserting ads into the content. Instead of having an ad play at the beginning of each new video, there's a new possibility called time-based advertising. It means that an ad will be played in regular time intervals, e.i. every 5 minutes. Although this might sound even more annoying to viewers than the 'standard' way of displaying ads, it should be noted that users who like to click on many videos and only watch a few couple of seconds of each clip will surely prefer time-based advertising.
MSN Video is now available in the U.S. and - as beta - in 10 other countries, including Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and the U.K. In the next couple of months, the new version of MSN Video will be incorporated over all the MSN channels.