Comments on: Boxee: WebTV That Makes Sense. Is That Good or Bad for Big Cable?

By: Boxee: Either Jeff Zucker or Jason Kilar Are Lying About Booting Us Off Hulu | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:31:05 +0000

[...] Congressional hearings on the Comcast (CMCSA) – NBCU deal. And as sometimes happens when Boxee and big media intersect, controversy [...]

By: Stage Two’s blog » Client News: Boxee momentum drives series B funding

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:29:28 +0000

[...] boxee’s profile for content partners. Articles in the New York Times, The Washington Post, All Things D, and more drove interest from hardware makers, content partners, and even more press. That coverage [...]

By: GNC-2009-01-13 #442 Post CES wrap up and Regular Tech Podcast | Geek News Central

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:54:23 +0000

[...] delay Digital TV Transition Use Social Networks if your Laid Off Trade Shows are Not Dead I Agree Boxee Rules and is a Game Changer CES Attendance is at 110K iTable gives Surface a run for Money App Store Wars turning ugly Fedora [...]

By: Cooliris Nabs $15.5 Million in Funding, As It Upgrades Its 3D Wall | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 04:02:32 +0000

[...] navigating information more visually is increasing all over the Internet, from video services like Boxee to visually-oriented search services like [...]

By: Boxee CEO Avner Ronen Gets a Crash Course in the TV Business | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:01:07 +0000

[...] I first met Avner Ronen in January, the Boxee CEO was beaming: His Web video company was one of the breakout hits at the Consumer [...]

By: Did Big Cable Force Hulu Off Boxee? | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 01:45:45 +0000

[...] because, as I noted before, it’s the cable companies who have the most to lose from cable bypass plays like Boxee: If you can get all the movies, TV shows and other content you want for free on the Web, why are [...]

By: Comcast’s Customers Give The Cable Guy The Boot | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:13:41 +0000

[...] customers were ditching HBO and MTV and programming their own TV via the Web services like Hulu and Boxee, either: The company only added 184,000 high-speed data subscribers; Wall Street was looking for [...]

By: CES recap

CES recap — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:18:50 +0000

[...] demos to cable executives, seeing their response, answering their questions, telling them how we should all be [...]

By: fred graver

fred graver — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:29:26 +0000

I’ve been using Boxee since mid-December. My reaction was that it’s great news for independent producers… Here’s why:

1) As Jerry Seinfeld once said “when you’re on tv, you’re on tv… it doesn’t matter if it’s cable or network.” He said this in the 80s, btw.

2) With Boxee, it doesn’t matter if you’re on cable, web, network, whatever.

3) Boxee allows social networks to promote your show. It makes it easy for fans of what you make to tell their friends… and they can watch it ON TV.

Good for everyone!

Now, if Boxee can just figure out how to pay independents!

By: Mac Beach

Mac Beach — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:45:58 +0000

I certainly hope ideas like this catch on.

The trick is to make the technology so cheap, in the form of add-on circuitry (and software) that can be tacked on to existing TVs or built-in to new ones… so cheap that the monopolists such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple as well as the cable, phone and other broadband companies have no interest in trying to corner the market on the capability, but instead focus on content.

Since nothing about this technology was un-doable 10 years ago it remains frustrating that we’ve had to wait for a generation of consumers to die and be replaced by a new generation that understands the concept of on-demand content (I regularly run into people my age that just don’t get it and don’t understand why I have no interest in standard cable offerings). Similarly, we have to wait for a generation of corporate leadership to be overturned (one way or another) to have products that can fill this need.

No doubt meetings continue in Redmond and Cupertino trying to figure out how to make sure that everyone that wants on-demand content will have to have a copy of Windows, or an Apple device or some sort so that we can trade one set of gatekeepers for another.

My hope is that the “kids” will be too smart to fall for any of their schemes.

By: Mark Sigal

Mark Sigal — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:27:21 +0000

Apologize if I parsed the point to tight. I took your comment “No need to go on about my lack of interest in this forced marriage” as lack of interest in the functionality, but it seems more your issue is the forced aspect (i.e., lack of volume controls) which I 100% agree on.

Sometimes I wanna lean forward, other times lean back. Sometimes I want to auto capture and aggregate, other times I want to be invisible.

Cheers,

Mark

By: Peter Kafka

Peter Kafka — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:18:25 +0000

Hey Mark. Where did I say I was averse to socializing/information sharing? As it turns out, I’m not terribly interested in those capabilities – in part because they’re going to be standard for any kind of media center, and in part because contrary to what my Twitter feed might indicate, I don’t want to share everything all the time. Sometimes I just want to watch TV. Whoever lets me do that, with the least amount of friction, wins.

By: Mark Sigal

Mark Sigal — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:39:07 +0000

My personal belief is that the Cable and Satellite guys will be all over Boxee (in a good way) for the simple reason that they get that fighting, ignoring and or trying to overly control the broadband medium is a surefire way to irrelevance.

It’s a paradox, to be sure, as these guys are the consummate toll bridge operators, but then again, we live in a paradoxical world.

As to your aversion to the socializing and information sharing/interactive elements of the medium, it is worth noting that: A) this is a fundamental part of what Boxee does; and B) just because you have access to an added set of “volume controls” doesn’t mean that you have to use them or that they have to be set perpetually on LOUD.

For what it’s worth, I blogged on the state of this medium in a post called:

What it Means to be a “Social” Media Center: Boxee, Apple TV and Square Connect
http://thenetworkgarden.com/we.....nect-.html

Check it out if interested.

Mark