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Telecommunications Will Microsoft Soapbox wash out YouTube?
Telecommunications Will Microsoft Soapbox wash out YouTube? | Will Microsoft Soapbox wash out YouTube? |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Tuesday, 19 September 2006 | |
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Microsoft has launched a beta version of Soapbox, a direct competitor to the YouTube video upload and viewing site, but with the key advantage that it will be tightly integrated into the whole gamut of Microsoft online services.
MSN Video already claims to be watched by more than 11 million unique users per month. According to Nielsen NetRatings, YouTube has nearly 20 million unique users per month. But both these figures are dwarfed by the number of MSN users - more than 465 million per month worldwide. It remains to be seen exactly what Microsoft means when it promises that "Soapbox...will be deeply integrated throughout Microsoft's portfolio of online services, including Windows Live Spaces and Windows Live Messenger," but this has the potential to give it a huge advantage that stand-alone YouTube will have to work hard to match. The beta of Soapbox on MSN Video is being made available on an invitation-only basis in the US. Anyone interested in participating is invited to sign up at http://soapbox.msn.com. Microsoft says access will expand over time by beta testers being allowed to extend invitations a limited number of friends. However, no date has been given for a commercial launch. Soapbox will require Internet Explorer 6 or later running on Windows XP or later, and Mac users are not being excluded: Firefox 1.0.5 or later on Under Mac OS X is supported.{moscomment}
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