Boxee has a loyal following among AppleTV users, even though the integration is far from seamless, because it offers such a compelling user experience. I've tried it on my Mac, and although it is still very buggy, I can definitely see the appeal. It deftly pulls in streams from YouTube, Netflix, Flickr, CBS, ABC, and until February 20th, Hulu.
Wait, what's happening with Hulu? According to the company, they are being asked to abandon Boxee by their content providers. This has prompted all sorts of speculation as to what is going on behind the scenes. Here are a few of the headlines I've seen:
Hulu's Hollywood overlords force Boxee block
And the Web TV wars go on, and on, and on
Content Owners Force Hulu To Kneecap Boxee
I'm sure this is just another turn in what will be a very long story. Still, I'm hoping that at some point the networks come to their senses and realize that people will ultimately get content as they like, regardless of the provider's preferences. (I keep telling people about how my television signal died at least a week before I noticed it was gone.)"The only reason they're on Hulu is to make money from Heroes when you watch it online so Apple or Google doesn't make that money instead," he said.
Put simply, it's about where you watch your TV.
The television companies who support Hulu don't mind if you watch their shows on your computer through their website from time to time. It means they can stick adverts on it and recover cash that would (at best) only go to rivals like iTunes or YouTube.
But the last thing TV companies want is for you to stop watching broadcast telly altogether and push internet streams onto your living room TV. Their lucrative live ads get switched out for inexpensive web ones – dealing another blow to their already struggling businesses.
No comments:
Post a Comment