It’s code-named Soapbox and On10 has a video of it (and 10,000 invites). Oh, On10 is a Microsoft site. But they disclosed that up front, so I feel better about linking to it than I did about linking to the Walmart thing earlier.
Microsoft says its viewing experience will be better. Jeff Sandquist says that Soapbox supports tagging, RSS everywhere, much higher quality video than YouTube and more. We’ll test that out. Will it be possible to do wide screen?
The first thing I did was go to soapbox.com and got redirected to fool.com (AKA the Motley Fool site).
That’s going to be confusing.
The first thing I did was go to soapbox.com and got redirected to fool.com (AKA the Motley Fool site).
That’s going to be confusing.
Every single movie on the internet should be in a Flash player. Period.
Every single movie on the internet should be in a Flash player. Period.
It plays flash. Of course it runs cross platform.
That’s not the point. Again, what about this is better *enough* to get people to switch from YouTube?
It plays flash. Of course it runs cross platform.
That’s not the point. Again, what about this is better *enough* to get people to switch from YouTube?
No one cares… no one wants a YouTube from Microsoft, no one wants a music player. People just want Microsoft to make their computers work well. That’s it. It simply doesn’t matter if this is faster, better, happier. No one cares.
Microsoft again wastes money misunderstandign who they are.
No one cares… no one wants a YouTube from Microsoft, no one wants a music player. People just want Microsoft to make their computers work well. That’s it. It simply doesn’t matter if this is faster, better, happier. No one cares.
Microsoft again wastes money misunderstandign who they are.
The posting of videos to the internet is just another fad anyway. Consider 5 yrs ago when everyone was making websites(before blogging was known by most).Then along came blogging,which is has been in decline and social networks(also in decline). Videos will be the next thing out…then perhaps podcasts will be next. If you are moving behind the trends,instead of in front of them, then it will never matter how good your service is.
AXE
The posting of videos to the internet is just another fad anyway. Consider 5 yrs ago when everyone was making websites(before blogging was known by most).Then along came blogging,which is has been in decline and social networks(also in decline). Videos will be the next thing out…then perhaps podcasts will be next. If you are moving behind the trends,instead of in front of them, then it will never matter how good your service is.
AXE
Axe: where the hell did you get that blogging is on decline? Everything I’ve seen is that it actually is increasing, and pretty dramatically so.
Axe: where the hell did you get that blogging is on decline? Everything I’ve seen is that it actually is increasing, and pretty dramatically so.
About the same time as YouTube’s Chad and Steve joined the Billionaire
Boys’ Club, Bill Gates let a few video junkies in on MSN’s Soapbox
video sharing site (currently in Beta). Is it Bill’s YouTube killer?
Take a guess.
YouTube’s never been much of a looker, but other, smaller sites from
Grouper (with their video wall) to Vimeo (maybe the friendliest
community of users) have delivered innovations that range from
practical (let me enter my tags while the clip is uploading – which
should be industry standard by now) to aesthetic (how much does it
cost to hire a designer with a sense of style?). Soapbox is just a
huge step backwards. It feels like the worst sort of “me too”
Microsoft product designed mostly to stop MSN users wandering
off-brand to do their video posting. Good luck with that.
So what’s wrong with it?
The name – MSN video sharing seems less about having your voice heard
than your pets seen. Good name for a Current.tv channel. Small
niggle, but unless they’re hoping for a seething hotbed of political
unrest, ‘Soapbox’ feels incongruous here.
The interface – OK, we’re in Beta (and Revver’s beta was pretty ugly
on the eyes) but it boggles the mind that any design-by-committee team
could have decided to use the smallest point-size available for the
upload page. Serious eye-strain. Seriously user-unfriendly. And let
me upload the damn clip while I fill in the data!
The aesthetics – Blue, boxy, bland and, so far, bare-bones. Looks
like it’s designed more with an MSN brand template in mind than any
sort of pleasing user experience. Makes AOL Uncut look like the
cutting edge. Ouch.
The right is wrong – Clips play on the right hand side of the browser,
not the left. That weirds me out. Are we all so used to the YouTube
template that we can’t deal with this? I wonder. I would love to
think some user-interface designer has a good reason for doing this,
but I suspect the Soapbox team are so locked down by the MSN design
template that the only point of differentiation they could come up
with was “YouTube runs clips on the left, we’ll run them on the
right!” Trust me guys, you shouldn’t have.
It’s unfair to judge the glitchy upload and streaming times yet (it’s
in Beta, remember?) but there’s a lot of easy fixed no-brainer stuff
wrong with Soapbox right now. More thought seems to have gone into
integrating Soapbox with your MSN “passport” than making this feel
like a contender. Surprising? Not really. We rate it D minus.
About the same time as YouTube’s Chad and Steve joined the Billionaire
Boys’ Club, Bill Gates let a few video junkies in on MSN’s Soapbox
video sharing site (currently in Beta). Is it Bill’s YouTube killer?
Take a guess.
YouTube’s never been much of a looker, but other, smaller sites from
Grouper (with their video wall) to Vimeo (maybe the friendliest
community of users) have delivered innovations that range from
practical (let me enter my tags while the clip is uploading – which
should be industry standard by now) to aesthetic (how much does it
cost to hire a designer with a sense of style?). Soapbox is just a
huge step backwards. It feels like the worst sort of “me too”
Microsoft product designed mostly to stop MSN users wandering
off-brand to do their video posting. Good luck with that.
So what’s wrong with it?
The name – MSN video sharing seems less about having your voice heard
than your pets seen. Good name for a Current.tv channel. Small
niggle, but unless they’re hoping for a seething hotbed of political
unrest, ‘Soapbox’ feels incongruous here.
The interface – OK, we’re in Beta (and Revver’s beta was pretty ugly
on the eyes) but it boggles the mind that any design-by-committee team
could have decided to use the smallest point-size available for the
upload page. Serious eye-strain. Seriously user-unfriendly. And let
me upload the damn clip while I fill in the data!
The aesthetics – Blue, boxy, bland and, so far, bare-bones. Looks
like it’s designed more with an MSN brand template in mind than any
sort of pleasing user experience. Makes AOL Uncut look like the
cutting edge. Ouch.
The right is wrong – Clips play on the right hand side of the browser,
not the left. That weirds me out. Are we all so used to the YouTube
template that we can’t deal with this? I wonder. I would love to
think some user-interface designer has a good reason for doing this,
but I suspect the Soapbox team are so locked down by the MSN design
template that the only point of differentiation they could come up
with was “YouTube runs clips on the left, we’ll run them on the
right!” Trust me guys, you shouldn’t have.
It’s unfair to judge the glitchy upload and streaming times yet (it’s
in Beta, remember?) but there’s a lot of easy fixed no-brainer stuff
wrong with Soapbox right now. More thought seems to have gone into
integrating Soapbox with your MSN “passport” than making this feel
like a contender. Surprising? Not really. We rate it D minus.
p.s. excuse the crappy formating – that was a cut n’ paste from Gmail, but otherwise all my own opinions after spending some time in the beta…
p.s. excuse the crappy formating – that was a cut n’ paste from Gmail, but otherwise all my own opinions after spending some time in the beta…
A year and half ago or thereabouts Technorati said it was tracking over 100 mil blogs.Now it says it is only tracking 57.3 mil blogs. It is clearly in the numbers.
The blogging boom has come and gone,Robert.Just because you do not see it or agree with it does not make it so.It may surprise you to know but you are not God of all knowledge. If my response seems a little agressive,take a look at your response to my 1st comment and you will see a mirror.
A year and half ago or thereabouts Technorati said it was tracking over 100 mil blogs.Now it says it is only tracking 57.3 mil blogs. It is clearly in the numbers.
The blogging boom has come and gone,Robert.Just because you do not see it or agree with it does not make it so.It may surprise you to know but you are not God of all knowledge. If my response seems a little agressive,take a look at your response to my 1st comment and you will see a mirror.
Microsoft always will have possibilities of winning any “battle”, but to what price? I do not believe that single the name and promises as better quality are sufficient to win to YoutuBe.
The time will say. A greeting.
Microsoft always will have possibilities of winning any “battle”, but to what price? I do not believe that single the name and promises as better quality are sufficient to win to YoutuBe.
The time will say. A greeting.
I’d forgotten how truly horrible on10 videos were, screaming, yelling (Volume on 11) Tina Wood yap yapping, doing the short-attention-span MTV Jump Cuts theater…someone sedate her before any performance.
Quickie review: Overloaded UI, generic blueish MSN Spaces/Windows Msgr template, it be quite disconcerting viewing on right side, and the missile-command Tag Soup is darned annoying…”My Soapbox” area, oh pluuuzze. And the Pocket PC tie-in’s and RSS hooks, oh brother, how so Microsoft. What no mention of “works with Zune”?
Basically a MSN Spaces copycat does Video…
Rob going YouTube “is not that social”, ohmigawd…70 some video sites out there, all but 2, YouTube and iFilm are ghost-towns. But geee, we all know how well Microsoft does “social”. Gotta come up with a better answer than that.
I’d forgotten how truly horrible on10 videos were, screaming, yelling (Volume on 11) Tina Wood yap yapping, doing the short-attention-span MTV Jump Cuts theater…someone sedate her before any performance.
Quickie review: Overloaded UI, generic blueish MSN Spaces/Windows Msgr template, it be quite disconcerting viewing on right side, and the missile-command Tag Soup is darned annoying…”My Soapbox” area, oh pluuuzze. And the Pocket PC tie-in’s and RSS hooks, oh brother, how so Microsoft. What no mention of “works with Zune”?
Basically a MSN Spaces copycat does Video…
Rob going YouTube “is not that social”, ohmigawd…70 some video sites out there, all but 2, YouTube and iFilm are ghost-towns. But geee, we all know how well Microsoft does “social”. Gotta come up with a better answer than that.
PS – What’s with all the 80s Valley Girlish Marketing push-pins that Microsoft hires, seems most of the product lines front those ‘fer sures’, that or the newly hired Wagged fluffs.
PS – What’s with all the 80s Valley Girlish Marketing push-pins that Microsoft hires, seems most of the product lines front those ‘fer sures’, that or the newly hired Wagged fluffs.