Boxee

In a posting on over-the-top-TV specialist Boxee's corporate blog, Wednesday, CEO Avner Ronen announced that the company plans to release a payment platform this summer that will allow users to purchase content "with one click on the remote." According to Ronen, the content partners the service will launch with (note: Ronen did not identify them) will offer shows, movies and channels that were previously unavailable to Boxee users, and will be able to package and price their content "as they wish," including offering it on a pay-per-view or subscription basis.

Due to the volume of news generated by last week's Consumer Electronics Show, and because the [itvt] editorial team is busy working on The TV of Tomorrow Show (March 3rd-4th in San Francisco), we are covering a number of stories in this issue in summary form:

A number of items of broadband video news came across [itvt]'s desk Tuesday. Here is a brief round-up:

Over-the-top-TV specialist, Boxee, unveiled the beta version of its platform at an event in Brooklyn last night, and also revealed that the new Boxee set-top box that it promised a few weeks back (see the article published on itvt.com, November 16th) has been designed by Astro (which also designed the Xbox) and will be built by D-Link.

New and/or revamped features offered by Boxee Beta include:

In a posting on its corporate blog last week, Clicker Media--the company that 1) recently launched Clicker.com, a service which it bills as "the first complete programming guide to Internet television" and as "the first truly comprehensive, structured and unbiased resource for navigating all broadcast- and broadcast-quality programming online" (see the article published on itvt.com, November 16th), and 2) also recently announced that Sling Media co-founder, Blake Krikorian, had invested in it and joined its board (

In a posting on over-the-top-TV specialist Boxee's corporate blog, Wednesday, the company's VP of marketing, Andrew Kippen, announced that Sony Pictures Entertainment-owned broadband video service, Crackle, is now available on the Boxee platform, providing users with 49 TV show "minisodes" (i.e. condensed versions of classic TV shows) and 37 original Web shows. "Crackle has long been a portal for great original Web content, old TV shows, and movies backed by one of the industry's largest entertainment companies (who also happens to make the PS3)," Kippen wrote.

In a posting on over-the-top-TV specialist Boxee's corporate blog last week, the company's founder and CEO, Avner Ronen, announced that it has signed its first partnership with a consumer electronics manufacturer, and that the manufacturer is developing a dedicated Boxee box: "We launched our public alpha for Mac/Linux in January at CES," Ronen wrote. "During the show we met with several device manufactures interested in embedding Boxee into their existing devices or building a dedicated Boxee device. I am very happy to announce we have signed our first partnership with a CE company.

Over-the-top-TV specialist, Boxee, has been tapped by Universal to develop a promotional Boxee app for its new alien-themed movie, "The Fourth Kind," which opens in theaters this Friday.

Here is a round-up of some other interactive TV-related stories we didn't have room for in this issue (as well as some stories from last week's SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in Denver, which our editorial team was unable to attend):

Over-the-top TV specialist, Boxee, has tapped Zach Klein, who previously co-founded College Humor, Busted Tees and Vimeo, to head up product. "Building a great product is one of those things that combines art, science and instinct," Boxee co-founder and CEO, Avner Ronen, wrote on the company's blog. "It is also very difficult to translate a vision into a product that people use and love. Zach has the magic touch and we are very excited to have him on the team.

Broadband video publishing solutions provider, Brightcove, announced a partnership with over-the-top-TV specialist Boxee, Tuesday, which it says will see it providing Brightcove media customers with turnkey distribution options to the living-room television set via the Boxee interface. The company bills the partnership as providing its customers with new opportunities to expand their audience reach and advertising inventory, while bringing online video from prominent news and entertainment programmers to Boxee users. The first Brightcove customers to take advantage of the distribution partnership include Conde Nast Digital, Qubo and TheStreet.com.

Conde Nast Digital announced Tuesday that it has formed a content distribution partnership with over-the-top-TV platform, Boxee (note: earlier this month, the latter announced that it had secured $6 million in new financing--see article published on itvt.com, August 13th). As a result, broadband video content from its Wired.com and Style.com properties, as well as runway photo slideshows from Style.com, are now available via new Boxee apps.

Broadband video company, Magnify.net, has launched an application for the Boxee over-the-top-TV platform which it says will allow Boxee users to browse and view its over 60,000 broadband video channels on their home television sets. The company bills the new app as part of an ongoing strategy to provide cross-platform access to its video content, pointing out that 90% of Boxee's 600,000-strong installed base have apparently connected their computer to a flat-screen television. The deal will give Boxee subscribers access to a line-up of content that includes video from New York Magazine, Bicycling.com and Tasteofhome.com, and a range of community and niche channels.

In a posting on over-the-top-TV specialist Boxee's blog, Wednesday, the company's founder and CEO, Avner Ronen, announced that it has closed a $6 million Series B funding round that was led by Boston-based General Catalyst, with participation by existing investors, Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures (note: the company raised $4 million in a Series A round that closed last November). As part of the financing package, General Catalyst managing director, Neil Sequeira, will join Boxee's board.

In a posting on his company's blog, Wednesday, Boxee founder and CEO, Avner Ronen, announced the availability of a Boxee application for Howcast, a broadband video service that offers short-form instructional/how-to videos. The service, which features over 100,000 videos in 25 categories, operates an Emerging Filmmakers Program that sees it working with filmmakers looking to create videos for it: it pays them a basic fee of $50 per video, and, if their video generates over 40,000 views, provides them with a 50% split of any advertising revenues the video generates. It also produces videos in-house and through partnerships with other media companies.