Microsoft takes hatchet to YouTube clone
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Microsoft plans to "significantly scale back" its Soapbox service, the would-be YouTube challenger it launched in 2006. Whatever that means.
Speaking with Cnet, Microsoft vice president Erik Jorgensen said that Soapbox's YouTube-like user-generated video setup is just too expensive considering the state of the economy. But he didn't exactly say how Microsoft plans to cut the service's costs.
We've asked Microsoft to explain Jorgensen's statements, and all it gave was more hemming and hawing. "We don’t have anything specific to announce about Soapbox at this time," reads a statement from the company. "We are currently evaluating what the Soapbox brand means to MSN and how it relates to our content strategy.
"Online video is a key part of the MSN experience. Today, MSN Video has 35 million unique users each month, who watch 250 million video streams each month. We remain committed to delivering amazing experiences for consumers while at the same time keeping a keen eye on our business objectives during this tough economic climate."
Redmond launched Soapbox in September 2006, days before Google announced its $1.65bn purchase of the wildly-popular YouTube. Then, just six months later, Microsoft barred new users from the service in order to install anti-piracy filters. After another two months, it reopened, but naturally, it never came close to matching the popularity of its rival - which Google is still struggling to actually make money from.
As we predicted back in the fall, the melting economy has forced Microsoft to re-evaluate attempts to transform itself into some sort of "Web 2.0" outfit, and Soapbox is an obvious place to trim some of the shameless start-up mimicking.
According to CNet, Microsoft will reinvent Soapbox as a place where "bloggers and citizen journalists can post videos relevant to areas in which MSN focuses, categories like entertainment, lifestyle, and finance." So Redmond will pick and choose which videos get posted and which don't. Or maybe not.
First, Jorgensen says that a user-generated free-for-all is too expensive. Then he says he's not so sure. "We haven't decided whether you just continue to support it or whether it is too expensive and out of our focus to do," said Jorgenen, the same man who recently murdered Microsoft Money.
Presumably, Soapbox's YouTube mimicking days are over. But Microsoft can't quite bring itself to say the words. ®
COMMENTS
Count me in...
...as another user who'd never heard of Soapbox until this article. Amazing. And I read tech news (mostly El Reg, admittedly) almost every day.
voice box removal
YouTube is actively trying to hide public user-made videos. So no surprize MS are cutting back that aspect of their service too. It's all part of removing the public voice in the West. With digital TV and radio the norm, what way can people spread the truth there now?
Hmm...
I dimly remember the name now you mention it. It seems like a case of MS leading the pack, here. I cant imagine that youtube will hang around for that much longer without some pretty major changes - those changes may happen slowly, without fanfare, but they'll happen. You just need to look at the music videos debacle in the UK and Germany (?) which youtube/Google have managed to make into "the man wanted too much money" rather than a "we can't pay the musicians for their work cuz we're skint" to see that things are changing.
It doesn't take a genius to see that taking the two major expenses in IT, namely bandwidth and storage and turning them into a free service is going to cost money hand over fist.
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