And Now….boxee.tv on Three Screens
Over the past 6 months a small startup named boxee has been making big waves in the digital media space. The company makes downloadable software for your computer (Mac&Linux at the moment) that weaves personal media, streaming Internet content, and social networking with a visual interface that makes your media come to life.
Boxee is, if you will, sort of what I could call PBS – not Public Broadcasting Service, but rather the Peoples' Broadcasting Service. As you add friends to boxee, you can see what shows they're watching and exchange recommendations with each other. In this way, you have the opportunity to create a bottom up approach to video programming that includes most of the mainstream online TV sites like Hulu, CBS, theWB, and more. It's the people and not the broadcaster who decides what merits viewing in what is becoming and increasingly noisy and crowded marketplace for attention and viewership.
The best way to demonstrate the power, freedom and social community aspect of Boxee was to shoot the video that follows below. While the focus of my review remains on the video content portion, my review illustrates how to use boxee on an iPhone, a laptop and a big screen TV. You get a pretty cool way to enjoy moviews, TV shows, music, photos and streaming content from sites like Hulu, CBS, Comeday Central, Last.fm, Flickr, etc.
I'm just now starting to make new "friends" on boxee and listening to recommendations for programming that I can follow.
But Wait! There's More!
Today, the company will be announcing that Netflix subscriber can play, browse and queue Netflix 'Instant Watch' movies from within boxee. If they're away from home, they can queue movies from their computer or phone, and then watch them on the big screen when you get home. I was told that Netflix on AppleTV is not currently available as they are working to overcome the hardware limitations of the AppleTV. Check back with boxee's blog for progress on this initiative.. The boxee Netflix application was created using the embeddable Silverlight plug-in for Netflix, and they are now recognized as a Netflix affiliate.
Other announcements today include news services and channels such as:
New Content
- TheWB - shows like Angel, Buffy, Firefly, The O.C., Smallville, and In Living Color
- The Boston Globe's Big Picture blog - amazing photos from around the world
- MTVMusic - songs/artists in your collection are now linked with music videos
Updated Content
- Hulu - enhanced UI with access to personal queues from Hulu.com
- YouTube - newly developed interface with improved browsing/playback as well as h264 support
- CNN, Flickr, Picasa - custom interfaces with improved browsing and playback
All in all, a very cool approach to delivering a three screens experience.
Highly Recommended
