Microsoft Launches Own Free Internet Video Site - Can Microsoft Soapbox Capture YouTube Users’ Hearts?   2/15/2007 - 2,012 views, 1 Comment

On first glance, Microsoft Soapbox looks like YouTube and Google Video in the ways that you would expect. It allows users to view free Internet video posted by other users; it allows users to upload and post free Internet video (note, Google Video actually allows some level of users to charge to view the full video they have posted).

And in fact, Microsoft Soapbox is similar to YouTube and Google Videos in most ways that most users would notice. The differences are primarily in the technical aspects.

News.com’s Rafe Needleman complained that “In sum, Soapbox is disappointing. It’s a slightly better sharing service than YouTube in some small technical ways…”, although he did like that you could upload to Soapbox in the background without needing a separate application such as Google Video requires.

And observes Greg Bulmash over at Brainhandles, ” Microsoft’s upload procedure is definitely nicer than Google’s. Even using FireFox on a Mac, it showed me my actual upload progress (instead of Google’s “uploading” with a couple of colored balls rolling back and forth) and worked very easily.” He also noted that “Overall, it seems that Microsoft is presenting a better picture quality and a better user interface than Google, better quality and similar interface to YouTube, and they’re accepting a wider range of video encodings than YouTube.” (Read Greg’s review of Microsoft Soapbox here.)

Of course, we all need to remember that Microsoft Soapbox is in beta, so who knows where it will end up!

Here’s what the homepage looks like:

You can check out Microsoft Soapbox here.