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A couple of weeks after Hulu pulled its content from Boxee, the internet-streaming service announced on its blog today that it has introduced a new built-in RSS reader that gives users access to feeds from popular video services like Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Video, Yahoo! (NSDQ: YHOO), YouTube, and—yes—Hulu. But don’t be fooled: The RSS reader doesn’t begin to solve the company’s content problems when it comes to Hulu. Yes, users will be able to access Hulu’s library of TV shows and user-generaed video through the feeds, but that pales in comparison to watching that content on the Boxee platform via the old application. Boxee’s explanation: “While it’s not as attractive or robust as our previous Hulu application, it will additionally support Hulu’s public RSS feeds.” Even if it is a Band-Aid solution to the problem, though, Boxee deserves some credit for being resilient in the difficult world of online content licensing.
Boxee’s problems began a couple of weeks ago when Hulu, a joint venture of News Corp (NYSE: NWS). and NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) (with Providence Equity Partners as a minority investor) pulled its content from the Boxee service at the request of content providers concerned about the impact on negotiations with cable operators. discussions that Hulu’s owners are were having with cable operators to launch an exclusive online streaming service only for cable subscribers. Boxee has been unable to entice them back to the service.

Staci adds: The give-and-take continues. Hulu thwarted the first RSS workaround, which Boxee founder Avner Ronen blogged “is a disappointing development since their RSS feeds are publicly available, and our browser, while optimized for a great 10 ft video experience, is no different in how it accesses this content than Internet Explorer, Firefox, Flock, Opera or any of the other browsers out there.” Boxee finally added a status window to let users know when Hulu is accessible to its users and a a Twitter feed for those who don’t want to log on unless it’s working. It literally was off and on all weekend.

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Source: PaidContent

Posted by: Geoff Caplan

Geoff Caplan.Com

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