MSN Soapbox
Encyclopedia
Soapbox on MSN Video was a service from Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 via its MSN
MSN
MSN is a collection of Internet sites and services provided by Microsoft. The Microsoft Network debuted as an online service and Internet service provider on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of the Windows 95 operating system.The range of services offered by MSN has changed since its...

 portal. It is similar to YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

 in that it is an internet video-sharing service. As of December 17, 2006, it was an invitation-only beta. In February 2007 it entered public beta. In order to be able to upload content, users are required to sign up for a Windows Live ID
Windows Live ID
Windows Live ID is a single sign-on web service developed and provided by Microsoft that allows users to log in to many websites using one account...

. Those who already have a Windows Live ID
Windows Live ID
Windows Live ID is a single sign-on web service developed and provided by Microsoft that allows users to log in to many websites using one account...

 are able to use that. MSN Soapbox has been compared to YouTube. A major difference between YouTube and MSN Soapbox is that Soapbox states in its privacy policy
Privacy policy
Privacy policy is a statement or a legal document that discloses some or all of the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses and manages a customer or client's data...

 that use of copyrighted material is not allowed and will be deleted. YouTube has that policy, but copyrighted material is still present on the site, because YouTube leaves the responsibility of finding copyrighted material in the hands of the copyright holder.

On June 16, 2009, Microsoft Vice President Erik Jorgensen said that Microsoft plans to scale back Soapbox, citing tough economic conditions.

Soapbox uses an interface heavily dependent on JavaScript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....

 and AJAX
Ajax
- Mythology :* Ajax , son of Telamon, ruler of Salamis and a hero in the Trojan War, also known as "Ajax the Great"* Ajax the Lesser, son of Oileus, ruler of Locris and the leader of the Locrian contingent during the Trojan War.- People :...

. The original codename for the project was Warhol, the Soapbox name being subsequently chosen by an intern during the 2007 summer. Soapbox on MSN Video
MSN Video
MSN Video is an Australian video streaming service from ninemsn as well as a United Kingdom internet television service from MSN. It was rebranded on March 11, 2010....

 differs from other video sites as it offers features such as RSS
RSS
-Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...

, and the fact that you do not need to open a new window to continue using the site and browsing videos when you are uploading one of your own.

The current version of Soapbox is in English (U.S.)
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....

; service and upload instructions are also in English. However, there were plans for this to be widened in the future. Videos are shown at 400 x 300 pixels by default, but can be expanded to full screen. Soapbox plays videos in the Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is a media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices...

 for Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...

 users and the Adobe Flash Player
Adobe Flash Player
The Adobe Flash Player is software for viewing multimedia, Rich Internet Applications and streaming video and audio, on a computer web browser or on supported mobile devices. Flash Player runs SWF files that can be created by the Adobe Flash authoring tool, by Adobe Flex or by a number of other...

for users who don't have Internet Explorer.

On July 21, 2009, it was announced that Microsoft will be closing the service to uploads at the end of July. The service closed entirely at the end of August 2009.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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