• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, February 23, 2005

MSN today will launch a new travel series, produced by adventure traveler Richard Bangs and featuring one- to three-minute streaming video and audio, photo galleries, and written articles.

For the first installment of the series, which focuses on modern philanthropists in Africa, MSN will post new content on its travel site today through Sunday. A future travel story, set for May, will involve webcasts of a climb of Annapurna mountain in Nepal.

The initiative is part of a revamp of MSN’s travel site, which will launch in several months, said Scott Moore, general manager for MSN programming. “There’s a fair amount of energy and planning going into a new travel channel for MSN,” Moore said. “This feature is one of the first that we will be putting up in the new travel channel.”

Other upgrades to the site will include destination guides and user comments about places they’ve been, said Moore.

The streaming videos will be preceded by 15-second ads. MSN has not sold advertising for the project yet, said Moore. So, for now, MSN is expected to run ads from marketers currently advertising on MSN video.