InsideMicrosoft

MSN Soapbox Invites Going Out

I just got my invite to the MSN Soapbox beta, and others are reporting the same.

Some first impressions:

• It doesn’t run in Opera.
• The interface is really smart. You have two panes (besides the sidebar). In the left pane, you browse videos, and whatever you click, plays in the right pane. This allows you to find more stuff to watch, all while watching what you already found.
• Soapbox sacrifices no features, including code to embed videos, number of views, star ratings, comments, a full-on tag cloud, advanced details and similar videos.
• Besides the standard link and embed code, you also get a “link with image” option, letting you post thumbnails of videos for places that won’t let you embed.
• Video is of a higher quality than YouTube or Google Video.
• The video controls are streamlined, sleek, and out of your way. In full-screen mode, they don’t get bigger (how stupid is it when YouTube does that!).
• There’s copyrighted content, but less than elsewhere. Also, the non-copyrighted stuff is of a higher quality than YouTube’s “emo” whiny teenagers. This is probably more representative of a closed beta than anything else.
• The profile features look real solid, tracking uploads, tags, favorites, and comments.
• There is so much mix of Flash and AJAX, all of it seemless and fast, moving everything along. One of the best Web 2.0 interfaces I have ever seen.

Here’s a few uploaded videos (anyone want to tell me what hack is running that wallpaper?):

Video: Vista, wallpaper

Video: STOP! Petertime!

Video: idiot pool

And here’s a thumbnail link:

hips don’t lie

October 10th, 2006 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | General, MSN, Soapbox | 5 comments