Soapbox and YouTube

By now it is old news that Google is buying YouTube.  By coincidence, I guess, I received an email tonight from Microsoft inviting me to try out Soapbox.  Soapbox is Microsoft's answer to YouTube.  You can go to the site and request an invitation - I put mine in a couple of weeks ago.  It's strange that Microsoft doesn't own the www.soapbox.com URL - it's owned by The Motley Fool, one of the earliest and best financial sites on the web.  Maybe Soapbox is just a code word, but for now you can get to it by going to http://soapbox.msn.com.  At the moment http://soapbox.live.com doesn't work, which seems odd too.

There aren't many videos on the site yet, but more are being added by the minute.  I haven't spent much time on YouTube, but one of the things I like about Soapbox is the ability to browse videos while a video is playing.

I'm not sure if I can embed a video in this post, or if everyone will be able to see the video, but I'm going to give it a try.

Video: Xbox 360 Wireless Ad

Did it work?  I've got to get one of those wireless steering wheels for the FJ!

When I was growing up we had three television stations and no home video recording or playback.  I won't be surprised if my next TV has an RSS reader embedded in it to make it easier to subscribe to all the content that is going to be available.  By the end of the decade I expect to be able to watch almost any movie or TV show whenever I want.  Most will be free and the rest will be cheap.  The promise of cable was that we'd see more narrowly focused channels - that brought us the fishing channel.  Internet TV is going to be broad and narrow at the same time.  I'm personally looking forward to the "Bluegill fishing on Kentucky Lake" channel.