Microsoft gives up battle with YouTube

This article Chinese source: website construction expert Aojie cms download landing 2009-6-18 17:28:10

Keywords: YouTube, Microsoft, Soapbox

In the coming months in San Francisco, Microsoft plans to significantly scale back Soapbox once the video site hopes to replace YouTube in user-generated content.

In an interview on Tuesday, Microsoft Vice President Eric Jorgensen said Soapbox is one of the areas Microsoft has abandoned in the tough economic environment. His division also recently pulled out of Microsoft Money, the company's personal finance software product.

Soapbox launched in 2006 - the same year Google announced a deal to buy YouTube - but never became a serious threat to the market leader.

In 2007, when it added filtering technology aimed at reducing the amount of copyrighted content posted on its site, Microsoft stopped letting new users access the site.

Microsoft wants to turn Soapbox, originally codenamed Warhol, from a user-generated content space for losers into a forum where bloggers and citizen journalists can post videos related to MSN Focus, all kinds of entertainment, lifestyle, and financing.

"We're going to add Soapbox to our overall video strategy," he said, noting that it's too expensive to be a broad user-generated video player given the current economy.

Although Microsoft will focus on such content, it is unclear whether it will continue to allow users to freely upload their videos, or will require some form of editing options later before movies can be uploaded to the site.

"We have not decided whether to continue to support it, or whether it is too expensive and beyond our focus," he said.

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