What Is Boxee?
Are you tired of cable television? With cable television (and media companies) sucking on a tailpipe, I recommend start using using Boxee.
Boxee is not complicated or hard to use. Boxee is an open, connected, social media center that you download on your Mac, PC, or Linux operating system. It is a new way to enjoy entertainment- streaming video, music, and photostreams right from your computer. Boxee also supports Netflix, YouTube, Pandora, Flickr, Digg, and MLB.tv.
I have been using Boxee on-and-off since last winter, when it still supported Hulu. Last February, Boxee blogged “Hulu called and told us their content partners [NBC, Fox, ABC] 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.”
After the Hulu debacle, I sort of gave up on Boxee. I did not want another streaming video application, as I already had Netflix on my Xbox360 and Hulu on my Macbook. What I really wanted was an open set-top box.
This November, Boxee finally announced a partnership in which they will supply their software to a consumer electronics company (i.e. to create an open set-top box). Finally, a move in the direction to eliminate cable television.
What does this mean? Boxee’s Box will provide consumers with a way to get media content in their living rooms, no matter whether it’s on a Connected TV, game console, BluRay player, computer, etc. According to Boxee’s blog, “Over the next few years there will be a great change in the way we consume entertainment on our TV. The Internet is (finally) coming to the TV and with it will come a whole new world of content, applications and innovations.”
To learn more, I recommend everyone in the NYC-area, or willing to make the trip out to NYC, attend the Boxee Beta Unveiling in Brooklyn at 7PM. For those who cannot make it, the event will be streamed live at Livestream.
Boxee was started in 2007 by Avner Ronen (@avneron) while working on an XBbox Media Center (XBMC) project. On November 2008, Boxee received $4M in funding from Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital.
