Hi all,

We have just published a first look at *Boxee*, a social media centre
portal for Ubuntu and Mac OSX 10.5 - if you could post a link on your
site that would be very much appreciated.

*Link:*
http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2008/09/14/boxee-the-social-media-centre/1


*Picture:*
http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2008/09/boxee-the-social-media-centre/fp_img.jpg


*Quote:
*/On the other side, there are more open source projects out there than
you can shake a stick at with great ideas but are under resourced, so at
large part of me encourages the Boxee staff to get a proof of concept
out first, then concentrate on making the world happy after that proof
of concept has been successful.

The idea that you can tie in a revenue stream to Boxee is also a great
idea for developers at least, because it certainly creates an incentive
to get things done, and Apple's iTunes is a perfect example of having a
media centre/buying portal that works. However I'd strongly encourage
not overly Americanising it if it wants universal appeal - there's
nothing more frustrating than not being able to use a key feature
because I live on the wrong side of the Atlantic. Also, if it goes down
the route of digital distribution, that brings a whole bag of DRM issues
too - is that compatible with an open source lifestyle?

For what Boxee is though, it's a great foundation for something a little
different and don't feel we're criticising an Alpha, because we've seen
huge updates month on month - we're merely saying there's / /still a lot
to do. For home theatre enthusiasts it might be worth a splash to
download it and watch it evolve, but for the rest of us - I think we'll
take another look to see what features finally made the cut when it's in
beta./
*
*Cheers guys!

Tim Smalley
www.bit-tech.net