Microsoft preps Soapbox to take on YouTube

Microsoft is preparing to go live with their new user-generated video service and is ramping up to take on YouTube in the near future. Codenamed Warhol, the service's final name is said to be "Soapbox." It will debut on MSN instead of Windows Live, as many have expected, but will nevertheless be tightly integrated with Microsoft's MySpace competitor, Windows Live Spaces. The details of the new service are rumored to be very similar to those of YouTube, with a 100 MB upload limit from "almost any format," tags and categories, RSS feeds, integration of a Windows Live Spaces account, and the ability to embed videos on a web page or blog.

Aside from RSS feeds, which is something that YouTube does not yet have (although they allow you to subscribe to various users' videos through their own web interface), another item to note is the lack of any sort of length limits to the uploaded videos.

Microsoft believes that it is already positioned to be a heavy competitor against YouTube for the user-generated video market. MSN's Todd E. Herman said in an interview that the game isn't about uploading, it's about availability and MSN is already good at making content available. Mr. Herman was very confident that while YouTube definitely "got to the party early," MSN's 4 million unique visitors per month would allow them to catch up in no time.

Initial screenshots of the Soapbox page (not yet live) sure do look a lot like YouTube (as usual... remember MSN search which looked like google) except with that signature Microsofty twist.