Boxee's Media Center Platform Gaining New Apps and More
by Sam Dean - Jul. 13, 2009Comments (1)- Related Blog Posts
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When online video powerhouse Hulu recently released its own application for watching video, many observers interpreted the move as explaining why Hulu had asked open source media center player Boxee to remove support for its content. Hulu had been the number one type of content that Boxee users watched, and there were a lot of people who forecasted that Boxee was doomed. That's not so.Â
Boxee officials have steadily posted workarounds for watching Hulu on Boxee, and Boxee continues to do very well on Apple TVs, where Hulu has no presence. The company is making some other new moves as well.
 On a laptop or connected to an HDTV, Boxee's free, open source platform lets you watch movies, TV shows, listen to music music and look at photos, as well as stream content from websites including Netflix, Pandora, Last.fm, and Flickr. You can use a remote to navigate Boxee on a big screen, so you don't have to stay lashed to a computer, and the platform has many social features for media sharing.
Recently, Boxee released a public alpha of its Windows version. I've been using it and it is pretty stable. The Windows version will potentially introduce Boxee to a lot of new users.
Boxee has also been running a series of Developer Challenges, designed to encourage compelling applications for the platform. Â So far there are applications for using drop.io for storing and sharing media files online, listening to and purchasing music, a social music sharing application called We Are Hunted, and more.Â
If you haven't tried Boxee yet, it's a good time to do so. The company's long-term goal is to reach out to hardware partners and strike content-related deals. In addition to showing signs of promise, Boxee is a lot of fun.
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