Boxee Money Makers

[So, immediately after I mentioned horror stories in cable company customer service, I got great service from my cableco. Although, that was in response to the literally immediate failing of my television and internet. Conspiracy? Prob not, unless it goes down tonight too]
Here are some of my ideas for Boxee to generate revenue. I'm focusing mostly on the video services, but Boxee also provides the ability to listen to music. [Also, please understand that I could talk for hours about each of these options. I tried to balance brevity with background.]

1. Get onto the cable or telco's set top boxes.
Cable companies control the television through their cable boxes. Getting into those boxes opens up a new world of potential user to your software.
This has to be the most unlikely of all of my suggestions because the cable companies don't want to give up control over the television. TiVo has been trying this strategy for a while with limited success. Even though they have gotten themselves on some Comcast and DirecTV boxes as a premium service, these agreements haven't reached their full potential. The cable monopolies continue to dominate. IPTV services like U-VERSE and FiOS might want a differentiator (which FiOS brought with whole home DVR).
However, for a long time the music industry thought it had a nice monopoly. As the distribution and consumption habits changed, Apple has taken control of nearly everything through iTunes (even though their DRM should turn off consumers and drive them to Amazon, but that's another post). Itunes even has made inroads into downloaded television programs and if they ever decide to focus on AppleTV, it could put a lot of pressure on the incumbent boxes. Maybe it's time for the cable companies to get out in front of this thing. The right software on an existing box can transform that loud, slow, unextensible box into something really strong. [Aside: it's amazing how lacking the existing boxes are. People are forced to put up with it because they don't know what could be better, but that's another post].
Why shouldn't the cable companies be happy to take $7 a month (what they get now) from any number of set top boxes and let box keep the premium above that?

2. Get on ANY set top box
There are tons of companies working on being the set top box that finally bridges the gap between computer and television. It seems unlikely that many of them will be able to successfully make their value proposition work to end consumers, unfortunately. The low chance of success of these companies could be an opportunity for Boxee to be basically outsourced UI design and help them conserve cash (especially right now). If you can be the software on every box, you can be the Microsoft of home media. You can make it easier for people to switch between boxes because of the common interface. That could drive hardware sales similar to sales of stereos and VCRs in years long since passed. Which could appeal to today's hardware companies.
Obviously this plan probably has a lot more development costs associated with it. Think of why they chose to build on Apple machines first, one type of hardware makes development way easier.

3. Make deals with content providers
Similar to how Netflix made a deal with Roku, why couldn't Boxee make a deal with Netflix? Why couldn't Boxee make deals with every content provider, Including the traditional networks?
If CBS needs more eyeballs watching its shows, wouldn't they be willing to pay a share of revenue for those eyeballs? Obviously, Boxee could be more targeted in its advertising than traditional television (as all new media products propose to be) so that should have value to advertisers and in turn content providers. This would be low-risk for the providers as it could be completely variable pricing based on the impressions, potentially with guarantees, etc.
Further, who knows how Hulu will be operating in a few years. Hulu could be buyers of original content not shown on TV first and basically become the world's first online 'network' with syndicated and original content (Boxee could become that as well, but Hulu has the head start here). That makes companies like Hulu and Joost and even YouTube potential partners (assuming they can figure out their own sufficient revenue streams).

4. Sell premium content
If Boxee provides the on-demand viewing we've all been waiting for, in addition to the helping us discover new content that we want, Boxee could sell downloads, rentals, individual channels (like a la carte pricing IPTV has been promising).
You can even leverage the social networks that Boxee is tapping into. When a friend buys a program, you could let them share a version that has commercials in it. Potentially, a whole load of friends would be buying the same content.

5. Launch an app store for plug-ins
Similar to how Apple does it with the iPhone. They provide value in the being the operating environment. If they can make plug-ins easy to buy and install, people might do it, but there are major hurdles to clear in order to get people to pay and download anything. Depending on how the above strategies play out, you may still have only a core of users who dowloaded Boxee already, in which case they would be more likely to pay for add-ons. I'm not sure exactly what those add-ons would look like, but that's why it's an app store and not a feature request. This is can be considered a modified 'freemium' model.

When I first wrote these down, I thought they were groundbreaking (or at least creative). Are they still that way? I'm not as sure. When I finally get to my post about the ideal mediacenter (based on technology that is around today), it will be more clear where I'm coming from.

However, Boxee's focus on Apple and Linux gives it a great foundation with people who are generally ready to find and install software. It also makes a bet on Boxee look a lot like a bet on Apple. The only real concern is whether they might be too early.

As always, readers, the floor is yours. What do you think?

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Boxee brings your content and the internet's to your TV (well, computer)

Image via CrunchBaseImage via CrunchBaseVery few people that I know have Macs or run Ubuntu (Linux). Otherwise, I would have written about this program earlier.

Boxee is a great program that brings content from your computer and the internet to your computer. It's very easy to use, and though still in an alpha (read: very early) stage, it runs reliably with video quality as good as your sources. The major drawback is that it only runs on Apple or Linux machines (you can also hack it onto an AppleTV pretty easily). Frankly, this program has had me checking out how cheaply I could get a Mac Mini on eBay to plug into my TV (not cheaply enough, I might repurpose an old windows PC with linux, though a proper video card is expensive and might be tough to make work).  Currently, I'm using a DVI to HDMI cable from my Macbook Pro to get the video onto my TV--it works great. The Apple Remote works to easily browse through the interface to access the different content.  Also, you can pull in video RSS feeds, like the TED conference videos.

In addition to the typical mediacenter features, it has social aspects as well. You can set up friends (yes I have invites, just ask!) and recommend shows that you watch to friends with boxee or connect it to twitter to tell the world how much you loved $100 Baby.

Overall, the features of this product are great, assuming you already have hardware that can run it. For more on how to use Boxee check the links at the end of the post. Here's a video intro:

quick intro to boxee from boxee on Vimeo.

More importantly, it's part of the trend towards getting your tv to act as the on-demand device that was promised in that IBM commercial that I referenced when I first wrote about Hulu. This is an amazing trend and one that I have been looking forward to for years. Every major network has full length episodes online. The NCAA streamed March Madness games live online last year (though not in HD, which made it tough suboptimal when I plugged my computer into my TV via VGA). Meanwhile, nearly everyone has a horror story of dealing with the cable company that has a monopoly on providing your service. Maybe Boxee (along with all of the recent set top boxes being made) can be the beginning of a major change in the way we treat our cable infrastructure. This is a topic that I've been meaning to bang out a post about for a while. So, I'll stop here for now.

Boxee raised $4MM from some very respectable VCs in Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures Bijan Sabet from Spark Capital to join its board. So, next up for Boxee is to find revenues. I have a lot of ideas about how they could make it happen, which is the topic of another post that has been in the works for a while (and that I've been telling anyone who will listen, along with what the ideal mediacenter looks like). Not surprisingly, Fred is anti-hardware for Boxee the company (but loves the mac mini as a mediacenter), so that's out of the picture.

So, if you have a mac or run linux, let me know and I will happily send you an invite to Boxee!

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Election Results

Just a few quick thoughts on a politics. I do not claim to be an expert. In fact, I claim to be quite ignorant. I am mostly posting questions here, even if not phrased that way, and would much appreciate your input.

Listening to the pundits talk about elections last night drove me a bit crazy. However, I was definitely happy to hear that the Democrats were going more moderate overall. With a country this big, how can anyone not agree that we need constant compromise?

The fact the longest serving Senator just got convicted of a felony is maybe one of the scariest things I've heard.

I am happy that the Democrats do not have a super-majority, if for no other reason than that the system of checks and balances would become woefully out of whack.
There are problems with the two-party system, but I think there is little reason why any new potential member of Congress would go alone.

Republicans are already looking to 2010 as a possible repeat of 1994. Personally, I thought 1994 was the start of a pretty good time in the USA, but I was only 12. As they say, correlation is not causation.

Not that I am an expert, but I've been thinking about the structure of our government. Specifically, the relationships between states and the feds. The comparison to our major corporations that are called 'too big to manage' is very apt. The value of a state being in the union with another is that if one has a major disaster, they can count on the other to help bail them out of it. That could mean one state may be supporting others in most years. Very similar to a large corporation where one division is a cash cow funding everything else (e.g., Google with AdSense funding YouTube, etc.).

Not every issue needs to be a national issue. Some issues can be dealt with at the state, county or city level.

Also, I think this election (and coming recession) may have at least a short term impact on the personal accountability of Americans. I believe that sometimes things go wrong. I believe that by trying to legislate wrong-ness out of existence we are trying to pass on accountability.

All of these thoughts deserve a lot more conversation. I almost wish I hadn't started thinking about them. Any pointers to already written papers on these topics would be appreciated (please don't suggest the Federalist Papers)

New Blackberries and Google Phone are coming

Some updates about more iPhone competitors that I think sound cool:

1. They are launching a cool new phone called the Blackberry Storm on Verizon in November (Engadget)
   
2. Blackberry will launch an Application Center
3. Berrystore already launched for free applications to help get going
   
4. The Blackbery Bold is launching on AT&T on October 27th
   
5. The G1 (Google phone) launches on T-Mobile (Mossberg, Pogue)
   

As you all know by now,  I want a non-iPhone to 'win'. I don't like the way Apple deals with its customers. I don't like their 'walled garden' approach. I do admit the hardware is cool looking (but overpriced). Anyways, I'll save my mac critique for another post.

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Microsoft Excel Add-in

I was recently thinking a lot about tiered pricing of items. I spend a lot of time in the Excel help files and googling about my issue.

My specific problem: I wanted to evaluate many different pricing schedules. I had a lot of clients and I wanted to evaluate the impact of each pricing schedule on each client.

I could have done it with a lot of if statements in a lot of columns. The problem is that is not dynamic enough. I didn't know how many tiers I would need. Plus, it isn't just finding the right tier and applying that price. I also needed to price incremental units on the next tiers. For example, you buy 1000 units. The first 100 cost $2, the next $100 cost $1 and anything about cost $0.50. So, each additional unit lowers your average unit cost.

Anyways, I did it by writing a function in excel and have created an add-in that you can use. Download it here. Code follows:

Function TieredPrice(volume As Double, tiers As Variant, prices As Variant) As Double
    TieredPrice = 0
    If IsObject(prices) = True Then
    If TypeOf prices Is Excel.Range Then
       If prices.Rows.Count > 1 And prices.Columns.Count > 1 Then
            TieredPrice = CVErr(xlErrRef)
            Exit Function
        End If
        If prices.Rows.Count > 1 Then
            NumCells = prices.Rows.Count
        Else
            NumCells = prices.Columns.Count
        End If
        pricesUB = NumCells
    Else
        TieredPrice = CVErr(xlErrRef)
        Exit Function
    End If
    End If
   
    If IsObject(tiers) = True Then
    If TypeOf tiers Is Excel.Range Then
       If tiers.Rows.Count > 1 And tiers.Columns.Count > 1 Then
            TieredPrice = CVErr(xlErrRef)
            Exit Function
        End If
        If tiers.Rows.Count > 1 Then
            NumCells = tiers.Rows.Count
        Else
            NumCells = tiers.Columns.Count
        End If
        tiersUB = NumCells
    Else
        TieredPrice = CVErr(xlErrRef)
        Exit Function
    End If
    End If
  
    If tiersUB = pricesUB Then
        If volume < tiers(1) Then
            fee = volume * prices(1)
        Else
            fee = tiers(1) * prices(1)
        End If
   
        For i = 2 To pricesUB
            If (volume - tiers(i - 1) < tiers(i) - tiers(i - 1)) Then
                If (volume - tiers(i - 1)) < 0 Then
                    fee = fee
                Else
                    fee = fee + (volume - tiers(i - 1)) * prices(i)
                End If
            Else
                If (tiers(i) - tiers(i - 1)) < 0 Then
                    fee = fee
                Else
                    fee = fee + (tiers(i) - tiers(i - 1)) * prices(i)
                End If
            End If
        Next i
   
        TieredPrice = fee / volume
      
    Else
        TieredPrice = CVErr(xlErrRef)
        Exit Function
    End If
   
End Function

Google Reader gets a fan! People read FF@6

you are absolutely right. google reader is awesome and i'm now a convert. - Jeff Miller

This is great for two reasons:
1. Another person is around for the shared items feature of Google Reader
2. It means that I have at least one person reading and taking what I say to heart!

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The Bailout

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeI haven't written in a while because I've been more than a little bit caught up reading anything I could about the Bailout being proposed by Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke (hilariously termed 'Hanke-Panke' Bailout). So, I've shared a lot of stories in google reader that I thought people might like. You can check them out if you are my friend in google reader or you can go to the 'bailout' tag that I made public.


You can also see everything that I've shared.  And, of course, I have a google reader gadget on the left.

I try not to get into crazy political discussions on the blog (and in real life), but I have no idea if I am in favor of the plan or not. I don't know if I really had a problem with the original proposal, though I admit it feels better that they are going to take equity stakes in the new proposal.

The most interesting part of all of this has been thinking about how devastating this could be in a worst case scenario. The vicious cycle created by credit-ratings, bad assets, and capital requirements is amazing.

Keyboard to a Man's Heart: a touch keyboard that works?

Swype just launched at TechCrunch50. It provides a way to more quickly use a keyboard on a touchscreen. You can imagine that I am impressed. It looks amazing and definitely has potential, in my mind to remove the 'it doesn't have a keyboard' complaint that I have about the iPhone. I previously wrote:

I really like having a physical keyboard. I haven't used the iPhone keyboard that much, but I do have some difficulty with it (though I'm sure I could get used to it). What makes me nervous about it is that in my effort to type more quickly, as I move my fingers to type, I would hit every key as though I dragged them along the keyboard. I haven't tried this, so I don't know, but I could imagine that I would have to lift my fingers a bit more and that would annoy me (though this has to be slightly insane on my part)

So, now that Swype has come around and literally encouraged me to drag my finger across the keyboard, this could be gone as a complaint. I could see it still being a bit slower than my two thumbs slapping at the keyboard on my blackberry.

Check out the video demo on their website (which is way cooler than this one I've embedded below).

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Mobile RSS - Update

A few weeks ago, I started using Newsgator Go! to read my RSS feeds while commuting. (You already know that I love RSS, even if you don't use it). My impression of it: meh.

Newsgator Go! has a few major usability issues for me.

First, the web-based Newsgator is not a good experience in my opinion. I don't like the interface, it's just not as intuitive as Google Reader. The other option is to use a desktop-based application. The desktop application for mac, NetNewsWire is fine, and does sync with the server, so multiple instances would reconcile without issue, but it just isn't ideal for me. I ended up creating a feed from a specific tag in google reader that would be just for articles I planned to read on the subway. So, maybe I didn't give the web reader enough of a chance, but I don't see why I should. I'm generally pretty good with the computer, so I think if I don't like it, there's probably a good reason.

Second, the application does not download stories automatically. So, I have to check each of the RSS feeds before I got on the subway each time, if I want to read them. No thanks. That is something that obviously could run in the background automatically.

I do have to admit that NewsGator has some advanced functionality that could be totally cool. The Smart Feeds seem like a very useful feature. Signing up for email newsletters, but having them come to the feed reader would be nice. I deliberately don't sign up for those things now because I don't want my inbox clogged up. But, in my experience, if there exists an email newsletter, there often exists an RSS feed with that same content anyways.

The NewsGator products also do a good job of giving you 'location-specific' options. You can choose which feeds show up where. So, if I wanted to, I could limit NewsGator Go! to have only my 'to read' feed while having the desktop client show all of them.

So, if NewsGator Go! was the only option out there, it would be serviceable. However, (!) the Wall Street Journal put out a mobile RSS reader. Now, this is a product that I like. For one, it gives me free access to WSJ content. Plus, it easily let me import my 'to read' items from Google Reader. It's still not ideal, but at least it updates automatically. And, overall, the program just seems more responsive.

Interesting to note: FreeRange Communications powers both programs, so I'm not sure why they are not more similar. But, I imagine that has something to do with server capacity, syncing, etc.

One thing to note with both of these products is that there does not seem to be a way to let them know that I have a microSD card in my Curve. This means that my memory gets full quickly and I've experienced a weird disappearance of text messages and emails. You can change the options about how many articles these programs should download and keep, but it's still a bit of a swag. Some tips on how to deal with this are here.

If you've given any of these things a try, let me know (in the comments, ideally).

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TED Conference Video: Education Kills Creativity

Not much to say in addition, but watch this video. I only wish Sir Robinson would have provided a more concrete sample solution to the problem. Though, I suppose that giving concrete answers would defeat the point.



It's amazing. Here'e the direct link