Soapbox (beta)

Microsoft's competitor to YouTube is Soapbox on MSN Video. Soapbox is Microsoft's user-generated video site, not to be confused with the company's professional video site, MSN Video. It's a solid video-sharing platform, but its features alone are likely not enough to win over a legion of YouTube users. We tried out the private beta of the Soapbox service, which will expand soon to allow more people to try it out.

Soapbox lets users browse videos in several ways, including by popular tags. Video categories can be browsed while simultaneously watching videos.

If you use Soapbox to watch other peoples' videos, you'll be able to tag videos and comment on them, and it's easy to find videos based on tags or popularity. You can also browse the video catalog without stopping the video you're watching, which is a nice user interface development. Of course, Soapbox uses Windows Media Player technology to display videos in Internet Explorer. But when run on Firefox or a Mac, it uses Flash.

The Soapbox page rarely is long enough to require scrolling, so using Soapbox feels more like using a PC application than a typical Web site. But, in the beta, the browser's back button doesn't work--it takes you back to the last site you were on, and loses your place on the Soapbox site. This is infuriating.