2009-02-06, 13:53
@slice
Heh, truth hurts, eh? Let's face it, the majority of us (that's you and me) are good-for-nothing mooches. The difference is that I know enough not to bitch about things unless I were to contribute in some meaningful way. XBMC is an all-volunteer effort, after all. Frankly, what is idiotic is having some yahoo coming in and telling devs to have "high quality plugins with 100% cross-platform compatibility." Well, no shit, Sherlock, everyone wants the best of everything. The trouble is that somebody has to work for it. So, what are you offering, Mr. Civilized Discussion? More hot air?
@rwparris2
It's a stretch to compare a startup with basically some video plugins to the 800-lbs gorilla of social networks, don't you think? Facebook's asset is its large userbase, which was amassed starting with the college pop, at a time when there were no good social networks to serve them. Other people have seen the money Microsoft threw at FB (and AOL at Beebo) and now everybody and his kid sister has a social network up. I'll ask again, does the world need another social network?
Even Facebook/Myspace/Beebo still haven't been able to come up with a reliable way to monetize their asset (userbase). We've all known about FB's privacy stumbles with intrusive ads. According to the link you provided, they are still deep in their necks in the red, and that ain't about to change in this environment.
So yeah, color me unimpressed when some VC fork over 4mil to a fast-talking ent. That's basically chump change, and doesn't change the ultra-long-shot nature of Boxee's chances, who have nothing in their pocket other than some plugins. Sure, there is lots of potential in online video, and bridging that to the idiot-box in the living room. The problem is that everyone already knows about it, from Hulu to AOL to MSN to Sony/Samsung/yada yada, and the competition is fierce to get their solution out first. From strictly an objective (read: if-I-were-to-invest-my-hard-earned-money) POV, Boxee's has gotten slightly better than a snowball's chance in hell. The only way for them to get anywhere is to get married to a deep-pocket suitor, as had happened to FB, Beebo, and Myspace.
If you want a good example of the hurdles Boxee faces, read up on the travails of Tivo. Tivo is about 1000 times better established than Boxee is now--yes, they've gotten a really huge userbase and have gotten their own boxes--but they have never made a profit and are facing insolvency for the same reason I stated: They don't have any leverage to license content, once the cable boys caught up with their own settop boxes. Do you think it would be that hard for the cable/TV/Hulu/Sony peeps to develop the same plugins Boxee has, that they have to license their content to Boxee?
Here is a NYTimes link to Boxee that I posted some time earlier (which was, ahem, somehow misplaced):
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/techno...video.html
Edit: Correction on TiVo. They actually made a profit last year, having cut deals with Comcast & Cox, after winning a patent-infringement case against Dish Network (see, IP that you can make money on).
Heh, truth hurts, eh? Let's face it, the majority of us (that's you and me) are good-for-nothing mooches. The difference is that I know enough not to bitch about things unless I were to contribute in some meaningful way. XBMC is an all-volunteer effort, after all. Frankly, what is idiotic is having some yahoo coming in and telling devs to have "high quality plugins with 100% cross-platform compatibility." Well, no shit, Sherlock, everyone wants the best of everything. The trouble is that somebody has to work for it. So, what are you offering, Mr. Civilized Discussion? More hot air?
@rwparris2
It's a stretch to compare a startup with basically some video plugins to the 800-lbs gorilla of social networks, don't you think? Facebook's asset is its large userbase, which was amassed starting with the college pop, at a time when there were no good social networks to serve them. Other people have seen the money Microsoft threw at FB (and AOL at Beebo) and now everybody and his kid sister has a social network up. I'll ask again, does the world need another social network?
Even Facebook/Myspace/Beebo still haven't been able to come up with a reliable way to monetize their asset (userbase). We've all known about FB's privacy stumbles with intrusive ads. According to the link you provided, they are still deep in their necks in the red, and that ain't about to change in this environment.
So yeah, color me unimpressed when some VC fork over 4mil to a fast-talking ent. That's basically chump change, and doesn't change the ultra-long-shot nature of Boxee's chances, who have nothing in their pocket other than some plugins. Sure, there is lots of potential in online video, and bridging that to the idiot-box in the living room. The problem is that everyone already knows about it, from Hulu to AOL to MSN to Sony/Samsung/yada yada, and the competition is fierce to get their solution out first. From strictly an objective (read: if-I-were-to-invest-my-hard-earned-money) POV, Boxee's has gotten slightly better than a snowball's chance in hell. The only way for them to get anywhere is to get married to a deep-pocket suitor, as had happened to FB, Beebo, and Myspace.
If you want a good example of the hurdles Boxee faces, read up on the travails of Tivo. Tivo is about 1000 times better established than Boxee is now--yes, they've gotten a really huge userbase and have gotten their own boxes--but they have never made a profit and are facing insolvency for the same reason I stated: They don't have any leverage to license content, once the cable boys caught up with their own settop boxes. Do you think it would be that hard for the cable/TV/Hulu/Sony peeps to develop the same plugins Boxee has, that they have to license their content to Boxee?
Here is a NYTimes link to Boxee that I posted some time earlier (which was, ahem, somehow misplaced):
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/techno...video.html
Edit: Correction on TiVo. They actually made a profit last year, having cut deals with Comcast & Cox, after winning a patent-infringement case against Dish Network (see, IP that you can make money on).