in the past year we noticed that we barely use our cable service.
i would sometime tune in to CNN or to watch a game, but other than these rare cases all the tv shows and movies we are watching is stuff we downloaded over the internet.

sometimes we would make the mistake of watching the broadcast of Lost or Heroes.
but the advertisements were driving us crazy.
about 1/3 of the hour-long episode is consumed by ads.

we don’t watch too much TV.
just Lost, Heroes.
sometimes BSG, Daily Show, Colbert Report, Meet the Press.
all are available online.
for movies we either go to the theatre or download.

so we made the decision to get rid of the cable.
called cablevision and gave them the news.
since we also use their broadband and phone service (hopefully we’ll replace it with skype soon) it was actually cheaper for us to downgrade our package to minimum rather than disconnect completely, at least for the next 6 months.

we already found good use for the ~ $100 in monthly fees we are going to save.
decided to get the Sony Bravia 46“ XBR2.

one of our first IT decisions was to use Google Apps as our email/calendar service.
it is free, and we are all used to using gmail as our personal email service.

my impression is that our email on google apps is slower than the public gmail service.
it is also not very reliable..
for example, for the past 30 minutes i am getting the following message when trying to connect:

We’re sorry, but your Gmail account is currently experiencing errors. You won’t be able to log in while these errors last, but don’t worry, your account data and messages are safe. Our engineers are working to resolve this issue.

Please try logging in to your account again in a few minutes.

another issue is that their app for blackberry and their pop sync is kind of buggy.

still it is free, so i guess i shouldn’t complain.

UPDATE: it has now been several hours. and still i can’t access my email through their site. sent email to their support. no progress, yet.

i am very bad at managing my To-Dos and follow-ups.
tried multiple tools and techniques.
but i have an issue with getting these tools to be part of my work routine.
at the end i always fall back to my memory.
the issue with my memory is that it has its limits and i suspect it is not getting better with the years.

i wish someone will invent some kind of tool that will be integrated with email and calendar and will try to automate the follow-up process.

we spent our first day at the boxee nyc office.
it was great to call maskit and when she asked where i am calling from to say “from the boxee ny office”..

an office space has several advantages over starbucks.
there is no background music.
it is not as easy to get another tall latte and a cake.
the restrooms are cleaner.

initial conclusions from brainstorming sessions.

need to have the following:

• close proximity to a good coffee place
• booze or other form of light drugs for inspiration and releasing mind blocks
• supply of cookies and other sweets
• whiteboard
• designated note taker
• something to throw (either to hit someone or for someone to catch)

we had a good couple of days.
made a lot of progress.
got focused.

airline food sucks.
i usually make an effort to avoid it.
but a day-flight from NY to israel means many hours without food, so gidon gave me a great tip – tell the airline you are hindu.

without giving it much thought i converted to hinduism (by changing my profile on continental’s website).

several advantages to flying as a hindu:

• the food sucks less
• you get the tray before all the other passengers
• if you eat quickly (which i do) you can return the tray without waiting for the cart to come by..

i don’t know what the ethicist would say (i don’t intend to ask), but i assume it is a minor offense

we have been soliciting feedback from investors regarding boxee for the past couple of months.

what we found is that these discussions are a perfect example of the law of diminishing marginal utility:

A law of economics stating that as a person increases consumption of a product – while keeping consumption of other products constant – there is a decline in the marginal utility that person derives from consuming each additional unit of that product.

This is the premise on which buffet-style restaurants operate. They entice you with “all you can eat,” all the while knowing each additional plate of food provides less utility than the one before. And despite their enticement, most people will eat only until the utility they derive from additional food is slightly lower than the original.

For example, say you go to a buffet and the first plate of food you eat is very good. On a scale of ten you would give it a ten. Now your hunger has been somewhat tamed, but you get another full plate of food. Since you’re not as hungry, your enjoyment rates at a seven at best. Most people would stop before their utility drops even more, but say you go back to eat a third full plate of food and your utility drops even more to a three. If you kept eating, you would eventually reach a point at which your eating makes you sick, providing dissatisfaction, or ‘dis-utility’.

our initial discussions with investors were very helpful.
some of the feedback we got made us change things in our pitch, and more importantly helped us focus.

but eventually the dialogue around questions like “how would you compete with <big company x/y/z>?”, “what makes you different from <product x/y/z>?”, “what prevents another company from doing exactly the same thing?” is very limited.
we are starting to bore ourselves with the answers…

getting back to the restaurant metaphor.
our stomachs are quite full.
time for us to order coffee and the check.
go out to smoke, maybe check out the bar scene.
wake up late tomorrow, build an appetite and hit the hottest place in town for brunch.

not sure where i went there with the metaphor…

the only travel policy we have at this stage is “what ever is cheapest”.
to help us in feeling start-upish it seems the airlines insist on putting us in middle seats only..

i am going to stay at Tom’s place.
sleeping on the sofa.
but the real issue is the quality of Tom’s coffee (he only serves instant coffee with too much milk).

we are going to spend a few days with the full team together.
working on some strategy and product stuff.
should be fun.

while we are a small team we are spread over two continents..
our HQ is in NYC and our development is in israel.

in the last few days gidon had enough of starbucks (our current office in NYC)
i don’t know if it was the bad coffee, the line to the restrooms, or the annoying music, but he had enough.
so we started looking for a different arrangement.

the cheapest most affordable we found was sunshine suites.
we saw the place today.
looks pretty cool. there’s a good vibe and a dog.
their model is that rather than renting office space, they rent cubicle space.
some of the cubicles are so small that i’ve been to airplane toilets that were more spacious..


UPDATE: before we had to make a decision on the cubicle we got a message from a friendly VC that is willing to give us a room in their office. after careful consideration we decided to take it
so starting april 23rd we’ll have a real office to work from.

we don’t say anything about what we do on our website.
so we figured it will be a good idea not to say anything about what we do in a blog.

we will write about the stuff we care about.
we are all passionate about digital media, the internet and TV.
and the company we started, boxee, is right at the center of it all.

we’ll share as much as we can.