A Bunch Of New Stuff From Boxee

Image representing Boxee as depicted in CrunchBaseImage via CrunchBase

Our portfolio company Boxee is announcing a bunch of new stuff tonight (Tues night) in San Francisco. I blogged about this event last week and I hope some of you were able to attend as I could not. Here's some of the highlights from today's announcement:

– A new homepage that actually describes what Boxee is and why you should care

– A public alpha of the Windows version. Now the three versions, Mac, Windows, and Ubuntu are in sync on features. The plan is to keep them that way going forward.

– A partnership with Major League Baseball to offer MLB Premium to Boxee users. Live sports on Boxee is a "you have to see it" experience.

– A new navigation layout that clearly differentiates from streaming apps (like MLB Premium) and local media.

– A partnership with Digg to create Digg for TV

– A Tumblr app for Boxee (two USV portfolio companies working together always warms my heart)

– 1080p HD videos on Ubuntu

– A whole bunch of new Boxee apps (some of which I blogged about last week) resulting from the Boxee App Dev Challenge. The winners will be announced tonight.

There's a live stream of the event tonight provided by Justin.tv. I'm going to try to watch it live since I can't be there.

This is just the beginning for Boxee and bringing video on the web to your living room television. I'll use a baseball analogy in honor of MLB's partnership with Boxee. I feel like this "web video to the living room" is a nine inning game and we are in the first or second inning right now. It's going to be exciting to watch and participate in.

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Comments (Archived):

  1. Doug Castoldi

    Fred, will the MLB app still require blackouts in local markets? This was non-negotiable back when I had worked with ESPN360 and I had always hoped those restrictions would go away.I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of where we are with video in the living room. Boxee’s come a long way in moving the ball forward but there’s a way to go. Best of luck to Gidon, Avner and all involved.

    1. deancollins

      Yes it will still have a blackout policy (i’m not involved with Boxee but nothing trumps the revenue dollars from the cable companies currently so forget about getting this if you want to support your local team).It sucks basically. I pay for cable. I pay for mlb.tv.BUTI cant watch mets on my pc at all. I cant watch my other games on my cable box.Oh and for your $110 mlb.tv subscription…..you cant watch games on the weekend before 7pm at all.Cheers,Dean

    2. fredwilson

      I think it does

  2. daryn

    Great stuff from boxee tonight, congrats to all!

  3. Carl Rahn Griffith

    If the newspaper industry thinks the web is disruptive, i dread to think what the TV companies will make of all this.Congrats – fascinating stuff.

    1. fredwilson

      They don’t love it carl

  4. willcole

    I’m always impressed with how far ahead MLB Advanced Media is than the other leagues (and media networks) when it comes to getting their live content pushed out. The MLB premium service reaches me on three media devices I use daily (phone, TV, computer).Oh yeah, and it’s nice for Boxee too!

  5. Amir

    These are very exciting updates, Fred. I am using Boxee on a dailly basis and it’s becoming as essential as my iphone.I am wondering if there are any plans for application monetization (premium apps, marketplace, etc…) for Boxee.Thanks!

    1. fredwilson

      I hope to see boxee provide transactional capabilities so they can be a reseller of MLB and Netflix and paid apps. Its an obvious and good path for them

  6. lefty.crupps

    > Now the three versions, Mac, Windows, and Ubuntu are in sync on featuresDoes that mean Linux users can watch Netflix streaming videos?When will Boxee release a version that doesn’t require Ubuntu??

    1. tsella

      Unfortunately, not yet.Netflix, at least in our current form of playback, is based on Microsoft’s Silverlight technologies.While through the excellent work of the Moonlight team, Silverlight 1.0 is supported on Linux, Silverlight 2.0, which is at the basis of Netflix, is not.Netflix have commented in the past, unrelated to Boxee, that they would bring it to Linux this year, but so far, that has not happened.We are keeping our eyes open, and you could help by asking them, right?

  7. Jonathan Deamer

    I’m a big fan of Tumblr, so it’s great to see Boxee are integrating the service. What’s even more great though is that pretty much the exact functionality that’s now available was the subject of a feature request thread on Get Satisfaction. Whether the new features are a direct response to the thread, or it’s something Boxee had up their sleeves anyway, it’s great to see that they seem to be so in tune with what the user wants.

    1. fredwilson

      Tumblr built this app so I think they are listening