boxee is an incredible media center application.

Over the past few weeks, there’s been a fair amount of discussion surrounding the situation between media center application boxee and video streaming service Hulu. When boxee first disclosed that Hulu’s “content providers” requested to be removed from boxee, I was disappointed from a viewer’s standpoint, although I can understand both sides. The networks backing Hulu do still depend on a demand for cable, and as boxee has gained popularity, there’s been a number of movements suggesting that people ditch their cable service.

But it’s still relatively easy to view Hulu on the big screen. Just connect a computer to an HDTV, open up Hulu in a browser, and enter full screen. boxee merely simplifies that process by a few steps – and what’s to say that boxee will always be used in a home theater context? Plus, Hulu is also accessible in another media center application, Plex. If the content providers are so concerned about Hulu’s usage, why have they not targeted Plex?

Hulu's return to boxee.

A couple days ago, boxee announced that Hulu would return via RSS feeds. Soon after that announcement, Hulu proceeded to block access and display a “Content Unavailable” message. It’s shaping out to be a back-and-forth effort between the two – Hulu status notifications are now integrated in boxee, and the team has opened a new Twitter account, @ishuluonboxee.

I’m definitely pulling for boxee on this one. I admire their dedication to the user; they’re not just backing down in fear of a lawsuit.

Avner, you guys rock. Keep doing what you’re doing, and best of luck.

Tags: hulu, linux, media, os x, social, tv, windows

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 8th, 2009 at 4:43 pm and is filed under Apple, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.