msnbc.com is a news website owned and operated as a joint venture by NBCUniversal and Microsoft.

In addition to original content from its news staff, msnbc.com is the news website for the NBC News family, with content from the cable television news channel MSNBC, NBC shows such as Today, NBC Nightly News and Dateline NBC, and partners such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Although the website msnbc.com and the cable channel MSNBC were launched together in 1996, they have always maintained separate corporate structures and news operations. NBC and Microsoft remain 50-50 partners in msnbc.com, but Microsoft has divested its stake in the television network. Msnbc.com is also editorially and financially separate from MSN, the portal site and online service operated by Microsoft, although msnbc.com acts as MSN's primary news provider.

On October 7, 2007, msnbc.com made its first acquisition, buying Newsvine, a website with community-driven news stories and opinions. On August 10, 2009, msnbc.com made its second acquisition, buying micro-local website company Everyblock.com of Chicago. IL.

MSN (originally: The Microsoft Network; stylized as: msn) is a collection of Internet sites and 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 since its initial release in 1995. MSN was once a simple online service for Windows 95, an early experiment at interactive multimedia content on the Internet, and one of the most popular dial-up Internet service providers.

Microsoft used the MSN brand name to promote numerous popular web-based services in the late 1990s, most notably Hotmail and Messenger, before reorganizing many of them in 2005 under another brand name, Windows Live. MSN's Internet portal, MSN.com, is currently the 17th most visited domain name on the Internet.

The concept for MSN was created by the Advanced Technology Group at Microsoft, headed by Nathan Myhrvold. 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. Categories on MSN appeared like folders in the file system.

Rachel Anne Maddow (pronounced /ˈmædoʊ/; born April 1, 1973) is an American television host, political commentator, and author. Maddow hosts a nightly television show, The Rachel Maddow Show, on MSNBC. Her syndicated talk radio program of the same name aired on Air America Radio. Maddow is the first openly gay anchor of a prime-time news program in the United States.

Asked about her political views by the Valley Advocate, Maddow replied, "I'm undoubtedly a liberal, which means that I'm in almost total agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform."

Maddow was born in Castro Valley, California. Her father, Robert B. "Bob" Maddow, is a former United States Air Force captain who resigned his commission the year before her birth and found civilian work as a lawyer for the East Bay Municipal Utility District. Her mother, Elaine Maddow (née Gosse), is a school program administrator from Newfoundland, Canada. She has one older brother, David. Her father is of Russian and Dutch descent and her mother is of English and Irish ancestry. Maddow's mother was raised a strict Roman Catholic, and Maddow herself grew up in a community that her mother has described as "very conservative." Maddow was a competitive athlete and played three sports in high school. Referencing John Hughes films, she describes herself in high school as "a cross between the jock and the antisocial girl."

Dylan Jason Ratigan (born (1972-04-19)April 19, 1972) is a New York Times Best-Selling author and host of MSNBC's The Dylan Ratigan Show, the highest-rated, non-prime time show on the network, aimed at critiquing what Ratigan sees as an unholy alliance between big business and government. He is also a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post.

The former Global Managing Editor for Corporate Finance at Bloomberg L.P., Ratigan has developed and launched more than half a dozen broadcast and new media properties. They include CNBC’s Fast Money and Closing Bell, as well as DylanRatigan.com, which is home to his podcast, “Greedy Bastards Antidote.”

His first book, Greedy Bastards, was released on January 10, 2012 and spent five consecutive weeks on the New York Times Best-Sellers List.

Ratigan was born in the village of Saranac Lake in upstate New York. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political economics from Union College in Schenectady, where he was a member of the crew team.

Ratigan served as the Global Managing Editor for Corporate Finance at Bloomberg News Service, and before that had covered Mergers and Acquisitions, the U.S. Stock Market and IPOs. At Bloomberg, he co-created and hosted Morning Call for Bloomberg's cable network and the USA Network. He has served as a contributor to ABC News and his articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald and Chicago Tribune.

Barack Hussein Obama II (ⁱ/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.

Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.