Microsoft will start testing an Internet video-sharing service called Soapbox, the software company's answer to Web sensation YouTube. Soapbox is one facet of Microsoft's strategy to create attractive Internet content to lure away billions of Web advertising dollars from market leaders Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. Offering everything from funny home videos to clips from old TV shows, YouTube sprang out of nowhere late last year as an entertainment break for millions of broadband Web surfers. In August, the site had 34 million visitors, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

Soapbox will be offered to a limited number of users during an invitation-only test phase, but Microsoft said it will go fully live as a part of MSN Video within six months. In a departure from its past strategy of restricting MSN Video to its Internet Explorer browser and Windows Media Player, Microsoft will make Soapbox available for various browsers including Mozilla Firefox and Apple Computer Inc.'s Safari. The runaway success of free-to-view online video sites has raised the question of whether rights holders such as music, TV and movie companies should be compensated, even if clips are uploaded by users.