The Boxee App Dev Challenge

Boxee running on 103" plasma at gizmodo g...Image by fredwilson via Flickr

Our portfolio company Boxee makes a browser that is optimized for consuming internet content on your TV set. You (or CE hardware companies) put Boxee's browser on a device that is connected to the internet and your TV. Someday soon the  Boxee browser will simply come with TVs and you'll just connect the TV to the internet.

Boxee is designed like Firefox. It's open source and anyone can build extensions to the Boxee broswer. But in a nod to Apple's iPhone, Boxee has deployed this "add on" capability as an app store. Developers write apps for Boxee and users discover them in the app store. Today, all apps are free but that will not be the case forever.

There are a bunch of cool Boxee apps available already, but in an effort to stimulate the creative juices of developers, Boxee has announced a competition – The Boxee App Dev Challenge. Here are the details:

The boxee dev challenge will have 3 categories: Video, Music and Photos. 

in each category we will have a People’s Choice award and a Judge’s Choice award:

People’s Choice Award: Drobo 
Judge’s Choice Award: Sony Bravia XBR9 46″

the deadline for submitting your application is June 14th at 11:59pm PT, but we encourage you to submit early and often as we’ll be talking up cool applications as they come in.
voting will take place between June 15th – June 22nd.

on June 23rd will have a boxee event in San Francisco (RSVP here) announcing the People’s Choice and our esteemed judges will choose a winner from the 10 most popular apps in each category.

the judges at the event will be:
Veronica Belmont - Tekzilla, Qore
Ryan Block - GDGT, former EIC Engadget
Avner Ronen - boxee founder and CEO
couple more judges (we are interviewing prospects: Obama, Oprah, AplusK)

looking for more info on how to develop boxee apps: check out http://developer.boxee.tv and take a look at the sample app (we will publish additional sample apps). please submit your app to [email protected].

whether you’re a developer or just a boxee fan, we look forward to seeing you @ the event. RSVP here.

The Sony Bravia is a sweet big screen TV and Boxee is giving away three of them (and three Drobos too). If you are a developer who is interested in working on video, audio, or image apps, this challenge might be just the thing for you.

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Comments (Archived):

  1. dromescu

    Great Concept, On what platform is working? Can I use in EU?

    1. fredwilson

      Linux, mac, windows

      1. dromescu

        Linux is very good, I have build a Mobile content distribution Channel on a Bluetooth stack for Linux. I will take a look for integration with Boxee -push very quick content from TV on my Mobile Phone from Browser. Thank you for this information, keep in touch…

      2. abrudtkuhl

        Speaking of Windows – what’s it take to get in on the Windows Alpha? I’ve made several requests and as an avid Media Center / XBMC user I may have some good feedback! I even tried grabbing it via bittorrent but it crashes on launch every time.

        1. fredwilson

          Go to boxee.tv and registerThen click on this linkhttp://app.boxee.tv/windows…

          1. abrudtkuhl

            Woo! Thanks Fred! I’m currently a user on my Mac but my living room / theater pcs are Vista MC and can’t wait to get Boxee on them!

          2. abrudtkuhl

            Wooh! Thanks Fred!

  2. Zaskoda

    Boxee is almost good. When it’s stable under linux, I’ll take a closer look at playing with plugins. Boxee is huge, really… it could change a lot of things. Please keep going!

    1. fredwilson

      Don’t worry about that. Boxee is funded for the long haul

  3. loupaglia

    Love Boxee, wishful thinking here but I wish there was a way for it to not get blown away with the AppleTV update. But they definitely continue to signal where the digital home is going and with outside developers building apps for it, we’ll see the same progressions as in web apps (not that the line between it and the web isn’t already indistinguishable).btw, hadn’t seen Dropos before, fantastic looking device. A bit steep for consumer back-up needs but still finding myself wanting one, especially if I go the RAID back-up route.

    1. fredwilson

      You can get one for free if you hack up something cool in python!

      1. loupaglia

        touche! you are absolutely right. now only if it hasn’t been years since I coded “hello world” in Perl. :)any Python developers out there reading this interested in partnering up to come up with something cool, give me a shout.

  4. jaredhanson

    Fred, thanks for your support of Boxee. I’m a big fan, and think it has huge potential. I know you love music, and I’ve made an app that lets you watch Pitchfork’s shows and music videos, just add http://boxee.helixent.com to your App Box repositories.I’m hoping to find the time to cook up something for this challenge!

    1. fredwilson

      That’s greatI’ll check it out

  5. kenberger

    “Someday soon the Boxee browser will simply come with TVs and you’ll just connect the TV to the internet.”FTW!! (Meaning F*ck Time Warner)

    1. fredwilson

      I thought it means “for the win” 🙂