Boxee CAN (and will) Survive without Hulu

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News broke last week from both Boxee and Hulu camps that effective immediately, Boxee was no longer allowed to utilize Hulu’s offerings–arguably a large reason a lot of folks began using Boxee. Hulu integration on Boxee was way ahead of anyone else and allowed you to watch any and all Hulu TV shows streamed from your remote control. Some have argued that this announcement could mean the demise of Boxee as a whole. I would argue, they are wrong. 🙂

I have several blog posts covering the various ins and outs of Boxee,
and what makes it special. There are thousands of posts on their forums
from loyal users and developers. While Hulu may have brought a lot of
people to Boxee, it simply offers so much more that even without it
those users would stay true. The on-line and social integration
features with your media paired with the variety of platforms it can be
used on, and the amazingly good price of FREE all make it hard
arguments against Boxee.

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But nobody is good enough to rest on their laurels and Boxee is no
exception–nor have they given any inclination that they are happy with
where they are. And that is what will allow them to continue to thrive.
Here are my checklists for things that will really put Boxee over the
top:

  • Blu-ray player:
    I understand the many, many
    limitations with integrating Blu-ray support especially on a Mac or
    Linux environment. But in Windows, a lot of people are very dependent
    on being able to play their HD movies. Arcsoft is a relative newcomer
    to Media Center blu-ray playback but seems like they would be a perfect
    fit for the small and growing Boxee. Free would obviously not be
    possible given the licensing fees, but at least the ability to offer an
    integrated add-on for sale would appease the majority.

  • Bring on More Big Channels:
    Yes, it’s sad Boxee had to
    get rid of Hulu which brought so much from so many channels into one
    interface. But as long as Boxee does not get discouraged, they can
    continue on their path. They already have individual portals for CBS,
    the WB and others. While of course it will be more work and less
    convenient to have an NBC, FOX, ABC, etc…people will love it and
    enjoy it. Boxee doesn’t remove ads, so it’s a win-win for all those
    companies trying to get fans to their websites anyways. So far it seems
    that CBS and the WB have not complained about the increase in traffic.
  • Get creative with Video offerings:
    I have two sites
    for you–Justin.tv and Ustream.tv–which if you haven’t heard of
    before, hopefully this will motivate you to check them out. Sites like
    that are an example of video and television content streamed on-line
    like YouTube and would be a perfect fit for Boxee since the majority of
    viewers are ones that live without cable television (or maybe just for
    pay-per-view events)
  • Ability to Search Channels for TV Shows
    As I
    mentioned in my original review, even with Hulu integration, having so
    many channels is a blessing but also a curse if you cannot remember
    what channel your favorite shows are. As difficult as it would be,
    being able to type a show title and have it search all the available
    networks would be invaluable–in fact, at that point, you might wonder
    if you would even need to see the channels themselves–simply search,
    find and watch, how cool would that be? 🙂
  • Fix Torrent Downloads in Windows Version
    Now this is
    a legally fuzzy section, so take this part with a grain of salt…but
    there are a plethora of "torrent" RSS feeds which can be used to find
    available shows, download and then watch immediately. Not as fast as
    streaming, but the quality is better as well, or so I’ve heard. With a
    functional RSS torrent download ability, that would give users another
    method of watching shows–and hopefully motivate the content providers
    to work with Boxee and still make their ad revenue instead of torrents
    which rarely have commercials.
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Now, what I don’t think Boxee should do is panic and begin thinking
they need to go the way of Meedio and rush into integrating an actual
television tuner and PVR software into their solution. If there’s one
thing the rapid success of Boxee should have signified is that people
are more than happy to live without cableTV as long as they can get
their shows. Add to that the complexity of all the standards, tuners,
drivers etc, and it just wouldn’t make sense nor pay dividends for
anyone–consumers or the company.

Boxee definitely has the right path in mind for its software, and I
believe they will continue to succeed even given this slight setback.
They give consumers a product they need, at a wonderful price, and make
it attractive and intelligent as well.

Keep on doing what you’re doing Boxee!

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