MSN Video Soapbox
Everyone is very familiar with YouTube. Countless celebrities began their “careers” in this online community and many more are being discovered on a day to day basis. With the advent of YouTube cam other video online communities that claim to be as good as YouTube if not better than the original. Sites like Veoh, Vimeo and Multiply are good examples. Another internet video community run by Microsoft this time, is MSN Video. It contains a huge number of video content that is categorized on the home site in different levels.
A child of the MSN Video community is MSN Soapbox. This is more similar to YouTube as it is a video sharing service that allows someone from Africa to view a video that someone from Thailand uploaded. It started as an invitation only site then come February of 2007, it finally became public.
Soapbox is really very similar to YouTube in all aspects. Videos are categorized by description, most viewed most famous are categorized together for viewing ease.
The great thing I liked about Soapbox on MSN Video is that it has a very neat and clean interface that other video sites may want to learn from MSN. It is very clean cut, none of them tricky links or very confusing buttons that litter other video community sites. The site’s interface is as fresh as any video community can get.
The public version has come far from its invitation only version. Its features were increased thus making Soapbox on MSN Video a tight competition for YouTube.
Also, if you are fond of Microsoft services and you are a user of such services, then you will be delighted to know that the Soapbox on MSN Video has integration with these said services. I love the fact that you can easily upload a video in this site to your MSN Spaces since I do have an account there. Also, you can watch a video in conjunction with your MSN IM up and running. Maybe an Xbox 360 Live will be next in terms of having the Soapbox integrated with other MS services but we may be getting ahead of ourselves here.
Soapbox on MSN Video uses Flash 8 for its videos to upload on the web so one can upload a relatively huge video file and then it can be played via IE, Safari and Firefox. It was relatively fast for the upload to take place with a good internet connection and a respectable processor. Mine took a minute give or take a few seconds and the video that was played back may not be as perfect as the upload, but it is still very pleasing to the eyese.
But the Soapbox is not at all perfect. There are some issues in terms of copyright infringement. With YouTube, it will be the copyrighter who will have to be vigilant about infringers but in Soapbox, once a content is found out to be infringing copyright laws, then they will take out the content no questions asked.
Link | MSN Video
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Welcome to MSN Video Player - Wed, 10 Mar 2010
Today we’re delighted to lift the lid on our new video platform, MSN Video Player. The service incorporates 1,000 hours of fantastic full TV shows for you to watch any time you like, such as Skins, 8 Out of 10 Cats and Footballers’ Wives. All for free.
In the coming weeks, MSN Video Player will also offer a selection of full TV shows in HD via Silverlight Smooth Streaming.
Also on the service you’ll also find the best short form content from the web, such as movie clips, viral videos and the latest news stories.
So try it out today, and let us know what you think. We want to hear from you!
Video of the week #1 - Sat, 27 Feb 2010
Welcome to the first in a new series for the blog. We take a look at the previous week’s weird and wonderful events caught on camera and whittle them down to the finest one. Simple. Or at least it should be.
The past seven days have thrown up so many memorable moments it’s near-impossible to choose. How about the small matter of Cheryl dumping Ashley? Well, that was about as predictable as a Chelsea home win* so we refuse to hand it the title of V.O.T.W (as it’s now affectionately known).
Other cultural highlights include topless tobogganing in Germany, and a dead woman miraculously coming back from the grave. Hmm. Maybe there’s hope yet for Jacko?
But the winner, or rather loser, of the week surely has to be the motorist who drove his car the wrong way down a main road. While drunk. And asleep. Come on, even Ashley Cole wouldn’t be that stupid…
* This blog post was written moments before the 2-4 home defeat to Man City.