Microsoft to launch Soapbox video service: another YouTube competitor

Oh look, Microsoft is going to launch a rival video upload service, following the likes of Google, Yahoo, AOL, and nearly every other Web 2.0 hopeful tech company under the sun.

It’s entitled Soapbox, and whilst it’s not live yet, it will be soon, going under MSN branding.

It’ll let you upload videos up to 100MB in size, tag and categorise, embed videos, etc. etc. – so much the same as YouTube and the rest. It’s not clear whether MS will use their own Windows Media format or Flash. Flash would be more inclusive to Mac users (Windows Media Player is woefully maintained in Mac – existent but hardly cutting edge). Windows Media is, well, Windows.

I’ll be cynical and say it’ll find its way onto the Windows desktop and Internet Explorer as default. A la many Microsoft offerings, it doesn’t sound unique or hugely exciting. Microsoft’s might could make it work, though I think YouTube will keep its edge.