Right now!

Microsoft's Soapbox and Google's YouTube fight it out.

Online video clips have finally arrived and everybody wants a piece of the action. When Google announced its purchase of YouTube, a popular online video-watching and sharing site, for $1.65 billion, it came as no surprise. That YouTube is Google's largest acquisition is indicative of the importance of the online video market.

Microsoft Corp too is hot on the trail of online video sharing as an Internet phenomenon with its own video service. Currently in testing phase, Soapbox will let Internet users watch and post videos, rate or comment on them, and even share favourites by e-mailing them or linking them to their personal web pages or blogs.

Greg Nelson, general manager, MSN, is confident that a large fraction of the 37 million netted Indians will welcome its video service. He believes there is "plenty of room to innovate".

MSN's success with Soapbox will hinge on how much traction it is able to get with avid video-sharers. Working with video sources may be a help.

It has announced its content distribution partnership with Control Room, making it the exclusive online worldwide destination via live and on-demand streaming for Control Room's live music programming, and visitors to MSN Video will get access to live concerts from top-selling artists.

How does an online video site earn money? "By putting advertising on to the site," says Krishna Prasad, head of programming, MSN India, "but this revenue stream has to be significant."

Nelson adds that the company is considering advertising options, including posting ads directly on pages with videos, or hosting advertiser-sponsored contests that seek video contributions from users.

Reports suggest that by 2010, the market for online video sales and rentals (globally) will reach nearly $4 billion. YouTube is the current hot favourite. Having attracted tens of millions of users since it was launched, YouTube has a clear early lead in a market that could be worth awsome sum once genuinely fast-delivery broadband (not the choked kind familiar to many in India) wires up the world better.

Competition, of course, could be good for innovation. Others in the fray include Yahoo and Time Warner's AOL, apart from several smaller services that are working on the eddies within the mainstream. "Right now," says an online media analyst, "with video, everybody's experimenting to see what appeals to consumers."