Techization

Most have heard about Boxee with it’s recent spat with Hulu.  Boxee holds vast potential to be the ‘next bigthing’ in media consumption online.  Boxee is a piece of open source freeware that has socialized the popular XBMC (Xbox Media Connect) platform.  It allows users to rate, share and recommend content with their friends through various social media tools.  

With much anticipation, Boxee has released an Alpha version of their popular platform, but there’s a hitch. The release is only available by private invitation at the current time.  I myself have been one of the lucky alpha testers.  This is my first experience with Boxee and I must say that I’m quite impressed.  Television and video is a deeply rooted piece of our culture.  We find ourselves huddled around the water color talking about last night’s episode of ‘The Office’ or ‘Grey’s Anatomy’.  Boxee now allows for easy sharing and ability to say, “Hey man!  You’ve got to check out last nights episode!”  

While the Alpha has a long way to come, there are quite a few glitches, this should make Windows geek’s happy as Boxee is showing their commitment to both Mac and PC’s.  

Boxee said in 2009 it is planning to release its own dedicated hardware for Boxee, and also plans to license its Boxee media center and social networking service as a third-party software component to other companies for them to use the Boxee software in their hardware, such as set-top boxes from cable providers.  Boxee has also stated that their goal is to have Boxee run on as many third-party hardware platforms and operating systems as possible.  - Wikipedia

Why Hulu Is Choking Itself

Hulu has harshly stopped every attempt by Boxee to pull Hulu content onto its platform.  Why you ask?  Hulu is owned by NBC, a television network.  They want Hulu content to be viewed strictly on computer screens and not on televisions that are wired to a PC.  Why?  If you can start watching your Saturday night COPS episodes with only two or three commercials, what incentive is there for you to keep your cable?  Hulu doesn’t want to foster a delivery method like Boxee (caters to users who display video on their television via their PC) which could ultimately kill its parent company.  Hulu is hurting itself by boxing out Boxee, pun certainly intended!  They don’t hold the market and if they won’t deliver the goods, someone else will.  

Ignoring the fact of who owns Hulu, the company shouldn’t care whether their advertising is seen on a television or a computer screen.  They both display a picture and are one in the same.  

Will this bickering ever end?