PlayOn gives up control, gains a bunch of new channels

We have released a new API for PlayOn, PlayDirect API. The PlayDirect API is easier to use and more flexible than its predecessor. The results of this release have already been amazing. Users have already used the new API to bring Food Network, Disney Channel Live, Lifetime, TV Land and over 20 more channels to the PlayOn network for everyone to enjoy

We released the PlayDirect API earlier this week, and developers quickly began creating their own PlayOn channels. With the PlayDirect API, anybody can easily specify the URL of the desired video, and then denote what area of the video to view. We can already see this new, easier to use API is leading to a rapid increase in the number of PlayOn channels for all of our subscribers to enjoy.

This API is the first step in a two-step process for giving our users even more control over their PlayOn content. The second step, coming soon, is opening a “channel store” on our site where customers will be able to add and review third-party channels they want on PlayOn.  

By opening up the PlayOn technology platform to third-party developers, we are able to expand the content available to PlayOn users. Just like Apple’s app store brought new features and functionality to the iPhone, we plan on seeing a host of new channels in PlayOn. Our API lets everyone find something they like with PlayOn.

If you’re interested in adding a channel to PlayOn, you can get access to the PlayDirect API here: http://www.playon.tv/channels/developer-guide

PlayOn Goes to Washington

I recently had the honor of being invited to Washington DC to speak with our Federal Government about all of the changes going on in the broadcast media space. Along with the heads of a few other select Over the Top video technology and content companies, we participated in two sessions, both with Congress and the Executive Offices.

The morning session included an opportunity to present and demo PlayOn to House Staffers. Representatives from members of the House that sit on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the Committee on Small Business, and members of the FCC stopped by to see how companies like PlayOn are helping to shape the future of TV. By and large they were very excited about the opportunities that are coming available to consumers and seemed committed to preserving those opportunities.

The afternoon session included a meeting with senior members of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The purpose of the meeting was to establish an ongoing dialog on the opportunities and challenges that technology companies like PlayOn face in a space that is dominated by large broadcast media corporations. Their goal in having this meeting was to make recommendations on how policy can be shaped to create a fair, competitive environment that enables new technologies and innovation to thrive in the Over the Top space.

As I said earlier, I was honored to participate and very encouraged that there is a concerted effort on the part of our government to preserve choices in how you consume media.

The next several years will be a very interesting time for this space. We are happy to have you along for the ride and hope you will continue to support PlayOn.

Best Regards,

Jeff Lawrence
PlayOn CEO

A word on PlayOn for Mac...

A lot of you have requested PlayOn for Mac, and we'd absolutely love to do it! But it's not that easy. We've estimated that developing PlayOn for Mac would cost us upwards of $10 million. There are some big challenges to overcome to get it working on the Macintosh platform: we'd be rewriting most of PlayOn from scratch, and inventing some new stuff along the way. Some of us at PlayOn use Macs regularly, and as much as we'd love a Mac version, we've happily settled with using Boot Camp at our homes and offices. We also have a ton of customers who are successfully running PlayOn using Parallels. Unless one of you wants to give us $10 million (anyone?), we're going to have to continue to rely on workarounds like Boot Camp and Parallels. Thanks for understanding.

Cheers,

Jeff Lawrence

C.E.O.

Status of PlayOn iPhone app

PlayOn received approval from Apple in June of 2010 for our application for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Set to launch on July 15th, this app was developed to allow existing PlayOn users to stream online video content and personal media via a home networked PC using the PlayOn software client. News broke regarding this application with CNET on July 8th, followed by a notice from Apple on July 12th that the application has once again gone into review. We were hoping Apple would approve by the previously arranged launch date, yet it remains in review. Our intention is to allow users to access online video content that they would normally access through a variety of means and are legally entitled to view, whether it be their computer browser, videogame console (Wii, PS3, Xbox 360), or any number of DLNA compliant devices. Other similar iPhone apps have been approved for the marketplace and can currently be downloaded, including SlingPlayer Mobile and iDisplay, so we're confident that we can work through this issue with Apple and hope to be able to launch the application on the App Store soon. An official announcement will be made once the app is available for download.

For more information you can visit CNET to see their reporting on the story. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20010681-1.html

Thanks for your interest.

Jeff Lawrence, PlayOn CEO

PlayOn, Hulu, NBC, Congress, and Boxee...

Many members of the PlayOn community have been asking about PlayOn's relationship with content providers, most notably Hulu. This long discussed topic has recently gained more interest due to Congressional hearings last week looking into the Comcast acquisition of NBC Universal (NBCU). During those hearings, Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA) asked NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, "Did Hulu block the Boxee users from access to the Hulu programs"?

Mr. Zucker's response (below) was interesting for a number of reasons, which we at PlayOn feel warrant additional clarification and comment.

"This was a decision made by the Hulu management to, uh, what Boxee was doing was illegally taking the content that was on Hulu without any business deal. And, you know, all, all the, we have several distributors, actually many distributors of the Hulu content that we have legal distribution deals with so we don’t preclude distribution deals. What we preclude are those who illegally take that content.", said Zucker.

First of all, Mr. Zucker's initial inclination to point the finger at Hulu all but directly contradicts Hulu's own public statement in which their CEO, Jason Kilar, said that, "Our content providers requested that we turn off access to our content via the Boxee product, and we are respecting their wishes." At the time Hulu's statement was issued (February, 2009), NBCU was one of only two content providers who owned a significant stake in Hulu (the other being News Corp). It seems highly unlikely that the "content providers" Mr. Kilar was referring to did not include NBCU, given the significant influence NBCU is capable of exerting on Hulu as a material equity stakeholder.

Mr. Zucker's seemingly disingenuous finger-pointing at Hulu serves to underscore the awkward position NBCU finds itself in when trying to encourage Internet distribution of its content through Hulu to the PC screen (which reduces the frequency of Internet piracy), while simultaneously trying to prevent the same Internet distribution to the TV screen (which increases cannibalization of broadcast viewership). It is no secret that the economics of an “over-the-air” viewing are currently more attractive to NBCU than an "over-the-net" viewing. Admittedly, balancing these competing objectives must be a difficult exercise for NBCU. However, it would seem more productive to try to work with players like PlayOn (and Boxee) in order to improve the economics of an episode on the TV screen, instead of pursuing the short-sighted tactic of attempting to block such technologies. As one small example, Hulu could implement a model where more ads were inserted into commercial breaks when viewed on the TV screen, and technologies like PlayOn (and Boxee) could participate in such a program by identifying themselves to Hulu's system as a "TV Browser" (to facilitate this). We at PlayOn would be more than happy to collaborate with Hulu on such an approach (and have expressed this willingness to both them and NBCU in the past). I believe Boxee would be eager to do so as well.

The second point of Mr. Zucker's response which bears scrutiny is his statement that, "what Boxee was doing was illegally taking the content." To understand this point, it is first necessary to understand what Boxee and PlayOn are, and what they do functionally. As many PlayOn fans have been well aware of for quite some time, PlayOn is, fundamentally, a Web browser. It is PC software which communicates with and downloads/renders content from remote Web/content servers in order to fulfill browsing requests made by a user. It uses standard Web protocols for this communication, just as popular browsers like Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome do. In fact, PlayOn is actually a customized version of the Internet Explorer engine (the current version of Boxee uses the Firefox browsing engine in a similar way). This makes technologies like PlayOn and Boxee very different (legally) from the "distributors" (aka: "websites") that Mr. Zucker refers to in his statement. PlayOn is a browsing technology. It is not a distribution platform or a video website. Neither Mozilla nor Google (nor Microsoft or other browser makers) have distribution deals with Hulu. It is misleading of Mr. Zucker to suggest that other browser makers are obligated to have distribution deals in order to enable browsing to Hulu (simply because they display content on the TV screen instead of the PC screen). Boxee's own response to the hearing makes a similar clarification.

On a more speculative note, it is important to point out that the original Boxee implementation was quite different than the current one and, at the time Hulu initially blocked Boxee, there was a much stronger legal case that Hulu could have made against Boxee than it can currently. Specifically, Boxee had setup a process by which it ran a "bot" that collected all of the Hulu metadata and then housed it on Boxee’s own server as its own feeds which were redistributed to Boxee users upon request by the Boxee software. This process was somewhat similar to the way Google (and other search engine) "bots" collect data from websites in order to include them in search results. However, there is an accepted standard (The "Robot Exclusion Standard") for website owners to "disallow" such bots collecting data from sections of their sites. Hulu had implemented such exclusions of their feeds (http://www.hulu.com/robots.txt), and Boxee's implementation at that time was violating this exclusion. I believe this gave Hulu both a technical and legal justification (and means) of blocking Boxee at that time. That has clearly changed, as Boxee has since implemented a true Browser model (as PlayOn has had from the beginning). But I suspect this initial case of probable illegality is what gives Mr. Zucker the ability to state (in the past tense) that "what Boxee was doing was illegal", even if it is no longer true. Mr. Kilar's references to Boxee took on a similar historical tone when he was recently quoted as saying, "Boxee had no right to do what it was doing."

All told, this increased scrutiny at the Congressional level will likely cause NBCU/Hulu to engage in more acceptable business practices. The importance of getting the NBCU acquisition approved is far greater than what is at stake in the battles between Hulu and companies like PlayOn and Boxee. Let's hope it ushers in a new era where we can all collaborate to make Internet viewing on the TV both enjoyable to consumers and profitable to content owners.

- Jeff Lawrence, PlayOn CEO