Microsoft is looking to shove its king sized oar into the massive successful user-generated video phenomenon with the launch of an online service to take on the likes of YouTube, Google and Yahoo.
Named Soapbox, the service enters beta testing today, and is expected to launch within six months as an integrated part of their current MSN Video service.
“We’re definitely not blind to the fact that YouTube has a big lead right now,” admitted Rob Bennett, general manager of MSN’s entertainment and video services.
He’s not wrong there either, with Nielsen/NetRatings reporting that YouTube scooped up 34 million visitors last month, while MSN Video could only muster some 12m.
In comparison, MySpace video notches up 17.9 million visitors a month with Google Video not far behind with 13.5 million each month.
With Microsoft’s vast reserves of cash to fall back on, it’s not surprising that Bennett is chirpy about their prospects, “It’s really early days in online video; this is still act one.”
Microsoft is running the beta trials by invitation only although users can apply on the website, which currently shows a kray-zeee video of some bloke prancing around in a silly MSN-style costume.
Woowargh! Those wacky Microsoft dudes!
The company says that the service will support a number of video file formats and delivery methods and run on both Windows and Apple operating systems with support for popular browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.
It’s obviously early days yet, but tech website Cnet were unimpressed with the Soapbox beta, declaring it “disappointing” and only “slightly better sharing service than YouTube in some small technical ways.”
[Via: BBC]
Warner Music Group has announced a deal with YouTube to distribute music videos, as well as extras such as band interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and artist rockumentaries.
“As user-generated content becomes more prevalent, this kind of partnership will allow music fans to celebrate the music of their favourite artists, enable artists to reach consumers in new ways, and ensure that copyright holders and artists are fairly compensated,” he continued.
A Brazilian company has forged a software bridge between Asterisk and Skype.
One feature that has been missing is Skype integration (the next version of Asterisk v1.4 supports GoogleTalk using Google’s libjingle library). A Brazilian company has now changed that, with their ChanSkype site.
There’s been a flurry of interesting announcements from some of the photographic bigwigs leading up to the Photokina ‘World of Imaging’ Trade Show, which is held every two years at the Cologne Exhibition Centre, Germany.
Leica DIGILUX 3 dSLR
Leica V-LUX 1
Canon PowerShot SD900
Impressively, the $449 / €449 camera offers a wideangle 3.8x zoom (28-105mm) along with the usual zillions of scene modes.
You must all be familiar with this dreadful situation when you’re stuck in a late Friday work meeting that never seems to end, while your mates are already in the pub.
Ringtones can be set as required and when the phone rings, it’ll even display the name of the fake caller, so you can let your boss see how really urgent the call must be.
Great oceans of dribbling saliva could be seen around the photography desk at Digi-Lifestyle towers today as we caught sight of the eagerly awaited Leica M8 Digital Rangefinder camera.
Leica used some Teutonic cunning to get around the problem of corner vignetting on older lenses by employing a smaller sensor, offset microlenses and software correction optimised for the lens in use.
Rangies aren’t for everyone though. The lack of autofocus and limited availability of long telephoto lenses means that you’ll need an experienced hand to grab action/sports photographs, and there’s no hand-holding ‘scene’ modes on this puppy.
Inside is the three-position shutter release button (prime exposure/ exposure lock/shutter release) with an old fashioned shutter speed dial to the left (we like these).
As with previous Leica designs, the camera is clear and easy to understand, simple and graceful throughout. And eye-wateringly expensive.
YouTube is continuing to get attention for the content it has on it. Not this time for alleged copyright violations, but for a young girl who has been appearing in videos about the trial and tribulations of her life. Her moniker? 
What raised our suspicions? It had always been shot on a video camera, high above a standard Web cam and edited in a self-consciously amateur fashion. The subjects she spoke about appeared just too ideal for the majority-male YouTube – geeky with relationship questions. Of course she was also very attractive. It was also strange that the music that was used in the tracks was always fully credited. We wondered if Bree was eventually going to start talking about products.
It appears that some people who it also didn’t quite ring true for, 
Adobe has announced the latest upgrade to their Photoshop Elements consumer photo editing software with Version 5 of the popular, consumer-friendly package adding more tools to help photographers organise, edit and share their pictures.
Powerful imaging tools
New tools for version 5 include a useful black-and-white conversion tool, a long overdue “Adjust Colour Curves” tool for fine-tuning images and a handy controls for correcting camera lens distortion.
Premiere Elements 3.0
Apple has for once pre-announced a new product, codenamed iTV (which is unlikely to be the final name as they’d get sued in the UK for a start).
In the UK, the iTunes music store was closed all day yesterday for refurbishment, with a black screen just saying ‘Showtime.’ At about 6pm (UK time) Steve Jobs announced why. There’s a slew of new/updated iPods and more content on the store as well as version 7 of iTunes for Mac and Windows (more on this later).
Movies (and video from the iTunes store) are now stored in 640 x 480 format.
Both the Nano and iPod video now have search features so that albums can be searched for etc., using the click wheel (with on-screen letters and search criteria). Gapless playback is a new feature, so songs can be played continuously without the normal two second wait between songs. There’s no beat matching yet, but maybe that’s Apple’s next enhancement so DJ’s will be out of a job.