MSN has launched a beta video sharing site called Soapbox on MSN.  It is only available to invited beta participants, but you can request an invitation…

One YouTube-ers’ view of the future under Google…

Wired’s Monkey Bites blog notes that Microsoft is expected to release the final version of Internet Explorer 7 later today, but right now you can grab the final build from Yahoo. Yahoo has packaged a version of IE 7 that’s been optimized to run with the latest version of Yahoo Mail, it says.

Google takes another poke at Microsoft with the announcement of Goolge Docs (renamed Writely) and Spreadsheets, simple online wordprocessing and spreadsheet creators with built in collaboration.

Microsoft’s Live team has produced and updated version of the Live Search Macros which allow for custom searchboxes to be created which search sub-sets of web content.

I just downloaded the Google Maps mobile version to my Samsung D600 mobile phone. The site recognises your phone and allows you to download a specific Java app for your phone. The quality of the interface is really impressive…

eWeek points out that Nicholas Negropote’s plan to deploy 100 million laptops will create the “largest computing monoculture” in the world, and hence the world’s biggest security headache.

How to make a newspaper talk: “At Online News, Chet Rhodes of WashingtonPost.com gives an inspirational talk about how he is turning the paper into video, training print reporters to take video (it takes 55 minutes, he says) and how it is working. Why do this? he asks. Because you have to. When we looked at video from a number of news sites in my CUNY class, the students liked WashingtonPost.com’s video best because it was still somewhat raw, not overproduced. And that makes it easier for print people to learn how to shoot good video, I say, as the definition of good shifts away from the priests of the tools. ” Jeff Jarvis.

Jeff Jarvis explains why Google’s purchase of YouTube “makes perfect sense”. Google will become the “world’s largest TV guide” and YouTube brings a respect for the wisdom of crowds to Google’s algorithmic world.

Lost Remote TV Blog: “Fox News had some of the first live video on the air from the scene of the NYC plane crash, thanks to a cell phone held by a Fox photographer. Turns out it was a Treo running CometVision software, which is set up to broadcast live video and audio with a touch of a button – even automatically alert newsroom staffers with an email.”