Log Out Page
In 2001, when you logged out of hotmail.com, you were presented with msn.com.
Now, let’s break this down. First, you used to “logout” and not just stay logged in. There was this idea that once you were done with a site, you’d leave and close it down. You did the same with computers at the end of the day — you shut down. The idea of logging out would be practical. If you were logged out, no one else could send an email from that account who wasn’t logged in.
The second was that you were presented with the msn.com site. That site was my first exposure to time-draining distraction. There was something happening all the time and the news was constantly changing. My dopamine levels were through the roof.
I could only imagine how much traffic was driven to msn.com as a result of Microsoft making that decision. However, it was like trying to sustain a fire with kindling. At some point, if the base isn’t there, it burns itself out. msn.com was popular for a long time but never to the same level as Google or Yahoo.
Was it the right call to redirect traffic to a page that users hadn’t really wanted to go to in the first place? Probably not. Microsoft might have used that page for building permission and tailoring for relevant, timely content.
