with all this writing about boxee i feel i neglected the topic of coffee…

this week i found a great coffee place in San Francisco,
blue bottle coffee.

if we ever open a real office over here, it needs to be within a walking distance of this place.

last night gidon gave a demo of boxee at NY Video 2.0 meetup.

the event was held at Webster Hall, which i guess inspired a rock star performance from gidon. he won the crowd (see poll results in the picture) and made us all proud.

boxee was born out of necessity. we were frustrated by solutions from Microsoft, Apple and others. we spent long hours brainstorming about what will be the ultimate media center experience. as a first priority we thought it will be nice to have a media center that actually works..   but looking beyond that challenge we came to the conclusion that social should be a big part of the solution.

a truly connected experience means not just connecting people with content, but also connecting people with people. so by making boxee social we believe our users will discover new content, rediscover forgotten favorites, and share experiences with friends, family and the world.

the mobile phone is a social tool, the web is increasingly social, there is no reason for the TV to remain an isolated island.

we have lots of ideas on how to make boxee more social, but would love to get your feedback on what social features you would like to see as part of boxee.

we have no more alpha invites left for this week..
next week (Monday) we’ll send out additional invites.
just make sure you sign up at boxee.tv

if you can’t wait then there is a way for you to get your hands on an invite before next Monday. just find someone who has already registered with boxee (each registered user can invite several friends, so they can share what they are watching and listening to).

these are crazy days for us.
we are all feeling the adrenaline rush (and no, it’s not leftovers from Amsterdam. we think).

we are moving to a new stage in the life of boxee.
up till now we were internally focused. working and re-working features, UI, ideas, etc.
now it is in the hands of our users. and we’re looking forward to getting the feedbacks, complaints, praise and everything else that comes with being out.

boxee is a true alpha. it’s not just a marketing spin.. if you downloaded and started playing with it, then what you see is just the beginning. we are working on making boxee more stable, more intuitive, more simple. i hope that our adrenaline rush will calm down over the next few days.. during the alpha period we’ll release interim versions based on the feedback we get. so please send us emails to support [at] boxee [dot] tv. or email me directly at avner [at] boxee [dot] tv

it is official. the boxee public alpha for Mac is ready.
the first invitation emails are being sent as i am writing this blog post.

this is a big milestone for us. we hope the boxee alpha testers will help us identify major bugs, usability issues, user interface issues, etc. so when we’re ready to launch a public beta it will be battle tested and ready for prime time.

if you’re not afraid of bugs and freezes. if you have lots of video, music and photos. if you’re looking for a better way to get digital media to your big screen TV, then you should sign up for the boxee alpha

XBMC DEV CON 2008 was a great event. we had good discussions, we made decisions and we probably achieved stuff that would have taken us months if we had to do it over the IRC and Forums. and last but not least, we had a great time.

everyone is juiced up and excited about the future of xbmc. it is going places.
we will see xbmc on more platforms, it will be more stable, easier to us, it will have new features.

still owe you photos from the 2nd day party and a video of the team.
we’re still collecting the materials. hope to upload it all over the next couple of days.

we tried to start at 9am.. couldn’t quite make it.. but once we got started we stuck to the agenda. we discussed some IT issues, new website for xbmc, and more.

after discussing a front-end DVR interface, we went over the different things we agreed upon during the conference. the vibe is good. everyone is excited about the future. and we all had a great time.

a video of team-xbmc should be posted later this week..

we got together at Grave Molen a local tapas bar that was closed down for our event.

we started with a demo of the boxee alpha for the Mac. the developers really liked much of our stuff, which made us all very proud at boxee.

then came bunnie. he told the story of how the xbox got hacked, which made xbmc possible. it meant a lot for the team to have him here. he then told us the Chumby story. how it got started, what is the thinking behind making it open, etc.

the rest of the day was spent discussing project management issues, improvements to the library, release schedule and other topics.

we finished the day at ~5pm. headed back to the hotel. got ready for the night out.

photos from our party at the Supper Club will be posted soon.