Boxee: new version + hulu update
Some wonderful news from Boxee as they continue to develop even with the ridiculousness that is Hulu. Now they’re bringing in an app-store to offer even more, and seems to at least temporarily have solved the Hulu issue.
we
started boxee because there was an opportunity in the media center
space for a product/company who put the user first, while respecting
the rights of content owners. over the past year and a half we’ve
listened to users, content owners, investors, working to create that
platform.while we don’t come from an entertainment or cable
background, we are learning quickly. it is a complex business. our
meetings with Hulu and their content providers reinforced that point.
the fact that it’s becoming easy to consume Internet video on a TV
brings into question many of the industry’s business models that
developed before the web. that’s part of the reason why Hulu asked to
be removed from boxee. our meetings over the past week weren’t able to
change that. but the people in the industry “get it”. they are users.
they read the blogs. they talk with users. they are trying to adjust to
a new reality, but they need time.users on the other hand, won’t
wait. as we’ve seen over the past few weeks, users will take matters
into their own hands to get the content they want. witnessing this,
we’ve decided to enable access to their favorite content using a new
built-in RSS reader optimized for video. like IE, Firefox, or Google
reader, the RSS reader supports Google Video, Yahoo!, YouTube and feeds
from many other websites. while it’s not as attractive or robust as our
previous Hulu application, it will additionally support Hulu’s public
RSS feeds.the extended support for RSS is part of a new version of the boxee alpha (no update for Ubuntu, yet). it includes two new features that are still under development:
- App Box –
this is a first take at an application “store” that makes it easy for
users to install new apps and plugins. there is also native support for
3rd party repositories, so you don’t have to rely on boxee as a
gatekeeper for what goes into the official boxee app store. for
example, you can add dir.boxeehq.com as a repository to get access to all the boxeehq.com apps.- auto update –
long time in the making and really bad form on our part for not having
it from the beginning. but better later than never. no need to check on
Twitter or our blog to know that there is a new version. now you’ll be
prompted to update boxee whenever there is a new release ready.this
is a bleeding-edge release. not for the faint of heart since it did not
go through much testing. we are on track to release a more stable
update on March 24th.if you’re in NYC on the 24th then you should come to the boxee meetup. we will release the new alpha version during the event and share some concrete plans for the beta.