14 DAY TRIAL // Back in 2006 Google acquired YouTube for no less than $1.65 billion, and Microsoft was building its very own YouTube clone dubbed Soapbox. Three years later, Google's YouTube is flourishing, and Microsoft's Soapbox is shutting down. The Redmond company sent an email notice to all Soapbox users regarding the imminent discontinuation of the service. Come the end of next month, the software giant will kill off completely Soapbox.
“MSN will no longer offer Soapbox, the user generated video service within MSN Video, as of August 31, 2009. Beginning on July 29, you will no longer be able to upload videos to Soapbox. People who have uploaded videos to Soapbox will have until August 31, 2009 to download them. Please make sure you download your videos by this date if you would like to keep them. We will have a notice running in the Soapbox service to remind you to download your videos. It is our goal that you download and keep all of the videos you uploaded that are important to you,” the company said in the message sent to users.
July 29 will be synonymous not only with the discontinuation of all uploads to Soapbox, but also with the start of the month-long period in which end users will be able to grab their content from the MSN Cloud and store it locally. After July 29, users will be able to sign in to their profiles and download the videos they uploaded by selecting the save option, which will appear as they roll over the mouse on the thumbnails for their content.
“Online video is a key part of the MSN experience and we will continue to offer a rich experience on MSN Video. We will also continue to invest in delivering great customer experiences, while keeping a keen eye on our business objectives during this tough economic climate. Thank you for your support of MSN Video,” Microsoft added.
According to statistics from comScore Microsoft accounted for just 1.7% of the online video market in the US in April 2009. By contrast, Google sites, including YouTube, owned a share of no less than 40.7% of the market. In the same month, while Google's YouTube attracted in excess of 100 million unique users, Microsoft stopped short of the 32 million mark.
“We made the difficult decision to close Soapbox as part of our investment in re-aligning our online services portfolio. Online video is a key part of the MSN experience and we will continue to offer a rich experience on MSN Video. We will continue to invest in delivering great customer experiences, while keeping a keen eye on our business objectives during this tough economic climate,” the company noted. “MSN Video will continue to be available. Only the Soapbox (user generated content) feature will no longer be available.”