14 DAY TRIAL // After cannibalizing Live Search and additional brands related to the moniker used for Microsoft’s former search engine, Bing now swallowed MSN Video. Through the marriage between Bing and MSN Video, Microsoft has created Bing Videos, essentially rebranding the old MSN service under the brand umbrella for its search/decision engine.
Although an Internet giant, with online properties attracting over 500 million people around the world, Microsoft has never been big when it comes down to viral videos. In this regard, it’s no wonder that the software giant is trying to rub off some of the “new brand smell” from Bing onto MSN Video, or Bing Video as it will be labeled henceforth.
“Starting today and rolling out over the next few days Bing videos will provide a new unified online video destination that delivers a comprehensive, organized, and high-quality video experience. This change will combine the powerful search experience of Bing, with the expertise of MSN video all into one destination,” revealed Kristin Meldahl – Bing. “With the New Bing Video you can now access videos from across the web, MSN’s array of high-quality videos, and videos from sites such as Hulu, ABC, and Youtube. Bing videos viewing options are nearly endless.”
In this context, it is clear to see that what Microsoft is attempting to do is position Bing Videos as a central hub harvesting content from various sources of viral content. But with such a move, the Redmond company also surrenders the online video market to Google, a company which surpassed 10 billion video views in August 2009, according to ComScore.
“Google Sites continued to rank as the top U.S. video property in August as it surpassed the 10 billion videos viewed threshold, representing 40 percent of all videos viewed online. YouTube.com accounted for 99 percent of all videos viewed at the Google Sites property. Microsoft Sites ranked second with 547 million (2.2 percent) followed by Viacom Digital with 539 million videos viewed (2.1 percent) and Hulu with 488 million (1.9 percent),” ComScore revealed at the time.
And think that, back in 2006, Microsoft passed on the option of buying YouTube, because it was dodging potential legal issues related to copyrighted content, and because it couldn’t see a viable monetization model built around the online property. The company started building Soapbox, which it folded into MSN video, only to swap the MSN brand for that of Bing in its most recent move.