Boxee Archive

Boxee has just announced that this summer they will be launching the Boxee Payments platform. The announcement can be summed up as, “we plan to release a Payment Platform this summer where users will be able to make purchases with one click on the remote.” Today’s news comes just weeks after the company launched their Boxee Box at CES.

Boxee wants to make sure they balance users wanting to view content and producers wanting payment for their productions.

From the announcement, “The content partners we launch with will offer shows, movies and channels that were previously not available to Boxee users. The content owners will be able to package and price as they wish, including pay-per-view and subscription. Content partners will have the flexibility to decide what they make available, whether it’s premium content, content from their existing library, or extras that will never make it on air.”

Boxee will take a fee for each transaction — while they don’t note the percentage, they do state it will be less than the 30% other app stores take.

I would totally use their platform if they allowed me to purchase television shows from the UK and Europe.

Boxee is currently looking for content partners for their initial launch of the Boxee Payments platform.

Update: I asked Magnify.net Community Manager Billy Linker for his thoughts on the Boxee announcement and he replied, “it’s great for @magnify (we have boxee app) Opens up another door for our channel owners to monetize content”.

Here are today’s startup and entrepreneurial updates:

• A Boxee Box is coming! – Boxee
• Announcing the OpenX Video Plugin – OpenX
• Small changes with a big punch coming next week – Ning
• OpenDNS matching Google’s free airport WiFi gift with free services for the holidays. – OpenDNS
• Can’t Take Credit Cards? No Problem! – LetMeGo
• Buy Sponsored Links on Reddit – Reddit
• Job of the day: Flash Developer/Designer in NYC

This looks like it’s going to go ten rounds people. First Boxee runs Hulu content. Then Hulu blocks Boxee. This morning Boxee launched a work-around based on RSS feeds. Now Boxee has told their users that Hulu is blocking the Boxee browser. So for now once again, it’s no Hulu content on Boxee.

Boxee co-founder Avner Ronen notes on the Boxee blog:

we just found out that Hulu blocked the boxee browser from accessing the Hulu site. this is a disappointing development since their RSS feeds are publicly available, and our browser, while optimized for a great 10 ft video experience, is no different in how it accesses this content than Internet Explorer, Firefox, Flock, Opera or any of the other browsers out there.

Boxee is down but not out – let’s see what they do next!

Update: Greg Sandoval at CBS was able to track down a Boxee employee and has some quotes regarding the service interruption.

Last month video network Hulu requested that media center Boxee remove all of the Hulu video streams. Today NY-based Boxee is announcing that they have been able to partially figure out a way around the ban/block by utilizing RSS feeds. If you download the latest Boxee release, you can import media RSS feeds which can include sources Google Video, Yahoo!, YouTube and also Hulu public feeds. Apparently it’s not as sexy as the former integration but it will get you by. You can also import media RSS feeds from any website.

Boxee staff does note that today’s release hasn’t gone through much testing so don’t moan if it turns your mac into a pc.

Boxee is also launching an "App Box" which allows for easy installation of new applications. They note that there’s also native support for 3rd party repositories so developers can send out apps without having to go through the main Boxee app library. I wonder if this is one of the ways Boxee will monetize…by charging for featuring certain apps.

Check out my video interview with Boxee co-founder Avner Ronen.

Boxee has just sent out an email to bloggers alerting them that as of this Friday, they will be removing Hulu from their channel lineup. This comes at the request of Hulu. Apparently Boxee has been working to try to keep Hulu in their lineup for two weeks.

From the Boxee blog post: 

we love Hulu. they have built a great product and brand (including one the best Superbowl ads this year)… the response has been amazing. people love watching many of their favorite shows on Hulu via boxee. last week we generated more than 100,000 streams for them…

two weeks ago Hulu called and told us their content partners were asking them to remove Hulu from boxee. we tried (many times) to plead the case for keeping Hulu on boxee, but on Friday of this week, in good faith, we will be removing it.  

Hulu has also posted on the Boxee removal:

Our content providers requested that we turn off access to our content via the Boxee product, and we are respecting their wishes…Without their content, none of what Hulu does would be possible, including providing you content via Hulu.com and our many distribution partner websites…For those Boxee users reading this post, we understand and appreciate that you’re likely to tell us that we’re nuts. Please know that we do share the same interests and won’t stop innovating in support of the bigger mission.

Check out our video interview with Boxee co-founder Avner Ronen.

We originally covered Boxee when they presented a demo of their open-source social media center this past September. Last week the company announced a $4 million round of funding. This morning I headed over to the Boxee NYC office and met with co-founder  Avner Ronen.

We discuss the product, how the company plans to use the funding, mobile access, comparisons to Apple TV and Microsoft media center, Joost and NYC versus the valley. We also briefly discuss the Boxee business plan.

Oh yea and if you want an invite, just head over to:
http://www.boxee.tv/centernetworks

Boxee presented their social media center last night at the NY Tech gathering. Boxee is a desktop app currently available for mac and linux and offers a slick way to browse your movies, music, photos and other media. Rather than view movies by name, Boxee shows you images of the covers similar to browsing at Blockbuster. Photos can pull from your local drive or from Flickr. Music comes from your library and iTunes (non-DRM). The social aspects come from sharing between friends. Boxee helps you share recommendations with your friends in all media categories and this is where the business plan comes into play. If you decide to order a movie on Netflix or Amazon, they get an affiliate cut on sales.

If you would like a Boxee beta invite, click here.