Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Boxee to Offer a Device to Put Web Video on TV

Boxee is trying to bring the boundless selection of Web video to the living-room TV. Boxee compiles music and videos from the Internet (Netflix, MLB.TV, Comedy Central, Pandora, etc.) and transposes it to a user friendly format that reflects a TV directory. Although Boxee has forged its own relationships with Web video sites, any company can make its videos available through the service. They are also facing an increasingly crowded market with more Blu-ray players, video game consoles and HDTVs having Internet capabilities.

Boxee has tried to bring network television shows into its service offering; however, TV networks prefer people are not able to watch their shows via Web videos because of missed advertising value. As a result, Hulu has largely blocked Boxee from adding its videos. Boxee says it is currently working on a Web browser, based on open-source technology from Firefox's Mozilla, so its users can manually go to any site and watch the video there.

To read more on Brad Stone's NY Times article, click here.

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