Content: A+

The site has tie-ups with State Farm, ShareBuilder, LendingTree, Countrywide, Quicken Loans, Fidelity Investments, Reuters, Financial Times, etc for financial content. MSN Money compares favorably over most personal finance sites on financial and investing News, as most of the content is from CNBC and the news and information is frequently updated. Like most other personal finance sites, it also provides mortgage rates, stock quotes , insurance quotes, stock scouter and screening, etc.

For both context and content, there is little to separate MSN Money and Yahoo Personal Finance - both score A+ in these areas. 

Commerce: A-

The site offers ‚ÄúMicrosoft Money‚Ä?, a personal finance application that allows users to manage household financial accounts and track a budget. Cnet rates it among the best personal finance applications. MSN Money also provides Bill Payment services, for a monthly fee of $2.95 for the basic plan and $5.95 for the premium plan.

Banking allows users to avail various services like tracking accounts, bill payments, finding great credit card rates, applying for loans, comparing bank fees and services, budgeting, and applying for credit reports.

Similarly, the other sections of the site deal with different personal finance issues like Investing, Retirement, Tax, Insurance, etc in detail - and has good contextual information and advice to help a lay person to understand, decide and manage finances.

MSN Money is much stronger than Yahoo in the 'commerce' area, because Yahoo doesn't have the transactional elements that MSN Money has, which integrate with banks and brokerage accounts.

Community: A-

MSN Money Community is better than Yahoo Personal Finance in community, as the site provides Message Boards, Newsletters and RSS Feeds. These things allow users to not only post questions, but also to interact, generate ideas and discuss a variety of personal finance issues and investments options. The message boards have different categories (YourMoney, WomenInRed, PoliticsandtheMarkets, etc).

Once again, I scored MSN Money higher in community than Yahoo (which got a B-).

Personalization: B

MSN Money Investment Toolbox is a free service that allows users to track, screen, and manage one‚Äôs portfolio of investments (stocks, bonds, options). The software allows a very high level of customization to the users, and is a successful Software-As-A-Service implementation of Microsoft’s personal finance desktop application. Over time, however, they could go much further in this area.

Vertical Search: B

MSN Money offers vertical search option through its popular MSN Money Investment Toolbox, which allows users to screen stocks from more than 500 criteria. Stocks can be screened on the basis of Market Capitalization, ROE, EPS Growth, etc. It is a powerful tool that allows investors to focus their search and save or export it to one‚Äôs portfolio, or mail the result to a friend. 

Other kinds of Vertical Search could easily be added to extend the offering, and make it deeper and more compelling.

For both personalization and vertical search, Microsoft and Yahoo are similar - a slightly disappointing B for each.

Business Model

MSN Money earns majority of its revenues from the advertisements. MSN Money has over 12.9 million unique users, and has ETrade, LendingTree, Intuit TurboTax, Quicken Loans, as advertisers.

Conclusion

Overall, my rating is as follows: Context : A+, Content : A+, Commerce : A-, Community : A-, Personalization : B, Vertical Search : B.

MSN Money is a stronger offering than Yahoo Personal Finance in a couple of areas: commerce and community. For the other areas, neither site stands out from the other. But MSN Money is clearly the better site overall, with A- being my overall rating.