As is typical with Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), the company is entering yet-another red-hot market. This time it's YouTube territory.

Hey, it's growing like a weed – as YouTube generates over 100 million video views per day. And given Microsoft's huge Internet infrastructure and smart programmers, cloning a YouTube is a no-brainer.

So you can check out the Microsoft beta at soapbox.msn.com. The site allows users to do things like upload videos and, yes, share videos. The site even works with Firefox.

But if you want to try it, you might be out-of-luck. The new site is by "invitation only" until the kinks are worked out.

Building a video community is not easy -- despite the huge user base and content that Microsoft has. Besides, YouTube is relentlessly making headway with all this anyway and has been able to beat-out biggies like Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG).

So don't expect this to propel Microsoft to the number one spot in this category any time soon.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and operates InvestorOffering.com.