We just got sent Microsoft's statement on the NewsTube launch, which went out this morning. Microsoft, which just failed its entrance exam in the video sharing market - note the return to private beta of MSN Soapbox, not a particularly strong debut among YouTube wannabes - will be a distribution partner for the Noob Corp entry (admittedly, that's a cheap shot - News Corp's distributed platform is in fact more sensible than trying to build a centralized site, which would have been a catastrophic failure from day one). The Microsoft statement, cut down a little to cater to your short attention span:
Today’s announcement is a great win for MSN’s more than 460 million consumers and for online video more broadly. When launched, this new venture will provide free access to an unprecedented library of high-quality video content. Our investments in MSN Video and SoapBox over the past couple of years have shown us that video is an amazing driver of user engagement and excitement, both for consumers and for advertisers.
Joining forces with Fox/Newscorp and NBC/Universal is completely in line with our strategy to offer our users easy access to the best video on the web...Building on the work we have done with MSN Video and SoapBox, we are taking another step toward realizing that vision.
We were thrilled to be a part of these discussions from the start, and share with our colleagues in the content industry our vision for delivering easy access to great content for consumers while accommodating critical copyright and intellectual property protections.