Beta Unveiling Presenter #1 – Missy Suicide of SuicideGirls.com
Many of you know that we’re unveiling the Beta version of Boxee in a few short weeks (Dec. 7th to be specific) – and we’re hard at work to get the Beta ready for you. What you might not know is that we’ve invited some very special people to join us to talk about their new Boxee apps for the event. We’re going to start introducing you to those presenters on the blog over the next 2 weeks. We start today with Missy Suicide…
Missy is co-founder of [NSFW] SuicideGirls.com, a site that mixes the smarts, enthusiasm and DIY attitude of the best music and alternative culture sites with an unapologetic, grassroots approach to sexuality. More than photos/videos of beautiful tattooed/pierced women, SuicideGirls is a community of members that connect through culture, art, music, technology, events, fashion, and photography.
Missy started the site with co-founder “Ace” in 2001 out of a loft in Portland, OR. Missy and Ace started SuicideGirls as an alternative to the mainstream media’s obsession with the silicone enhanced Barbie dolls and the incredible shrinking starlets. Understanding that beauty and intelligence are not mutually exclusive, Suicide Girls and members all have access to journals to share their thoughts and feelings with the world. A quick glance finds members talking about Soccer, Sustainable Cooking, and Adult Swim (to name 3 of ~1000 groups).
As someone who’s ready and resourceful enough to challenge the status quo (and win), we like Missy : )
We’re excited to have her at the Boxee Beta Unveiling to showcase a brand new Boxee App for Suicide Girls and supply the event with some femininity. RSVP below to see Missy Suicide at our event on Dec. 7th in Brooklyn at the Music Hall of Williamsburg.
–Andrew
subscribe to blog
join boxee
boxee on twitter
So… There will be free porn in this new boxee box?
it’s not p0rn. it’s art. and it ain’t free
Next time you link to a site with the page title “Beautiful Naked Girls…” it’d be great to have a little more heads up. The post gave the impression that there might be some sexual content, but still wasn’t quite counting on that…a simple NSFW would suffice.
Kyle – apologies for any dirty looks from co-workers/IT Directors.
Updated with #NSFW.
I must say I am incredibly disappointed to see Boxee going in this direction. I completely understand about the openness of Boxee, but the fact that you are inviting sites that contain porn (art or whatever you want to call it) to participate, and giving them a voice at your Boxee Beta intro. is a major mistake I believe.
Sure, you will draw some people by promoting these kinds of sites, but believe me you will alienate far more. I’ve been a user of Boxee for many months, and have talked it up to many of my family and friends. I’ve been a huge fan, but now I’m beginning to have reservations about the long-term prospects of Boxee. I thought you were wanting Boxee to become mainstream.
By promoting sites like SuicideGirls.com you are taking a major step backwards. This will backfire on you if you aren’t careful. With a family of 4 teenagers, now Boxee has to go on my list of places of concern for my kids. I truly was hoping for something different from Boxee. I hope this is not a sign of things to come.
Alan,
You mean “mainstream” like cable? Last time I checked there are an awful lot of adult PPV channels on offer.
Boxee team: if it hasn’t been done already, it might be a good idea to take a page from cable and have an option to not only make adult apps inaccessible, but to “disappear” them altogether.
John, that’s a good suggestion. Actually by “mainstream” I was referring to marketing to the masses such as Boxee boxes at retail stores, etc. Based on what I have read, it has been my understanding that Boxee desires to market their product (via software and hardware options) to the mainstream public – i.e. not a niche market.
As such, Boxee will need a plan for safe, family-friendly content, while also being an open platform. They also need to be careful to not alienate certain groups of people by not simply allowing, but promoting more controversial groups.
Alan,
I can understand your concern – but certainly Boxee must have been smart enough to include parental access controls in the new system, similar to how the Apple App Store is setup. There are laws in the USA which govern this type of situation – Boxee must properly label apps or channels and if they don’t have such a system setup then rest assured mounting concern and likely legal pressue would follow until the situation is rectified. If I am wrong and they don’t have protections in place please don’t stay quiet – we as users must help developers to make the right choices.
Nudity or sexual situations, art or porn, while undesirable to you are desirable to others. From the 1950’s in the USA individuals, companies, and activists have fought hard to protect free expression and combat censorship. Would we want Boxee to be a gatekeeper of taste and opinion? What if they decided not to allow programs or content that were politically consevative – or liberal – would that be desirable?
I don’t have children but some of the stronger opinions on the other side of the political spectrum are highly offensive to me- I wouldn’t want to watch them myself and I wouldn’t want my children to unless under my supervision so we could have a discussion about what we were viewing. I could then help insure that the values and attitudes I hope to instil in them remain intact. Is it not similar with violent or sexual content? As an adult you can choose what NOT to watch. For children there are thankfully parental guidence labels and access control which can help maintain the exposure you feel is appropriate. Unfortunately there are no parental access controls and labeling for hateful political content. In the end, it violates everyone’s rights to censor content outright for the entire population. What you choose to allow and block on your own household is also your right and I hope we are all given a platform that facilitates that with this product.
I do very much hope that Boxee continues to be an open platform for media and at the same time follows the laws set up to protect children, even going the extra mile working with feedback such as Alan’s to innovate in protecting young people from content they are not yet equipped to understand by themselves.
Toby
(Warning: my URL could be considered NSFW as well)
Alan & Toby,
As many of the Boxee team are parents this is something that we feel strongly about as well. We actually took steps to ensure that no adult content was available through the Boxee Repository until we had filters for it in place.
It’s our goal to keep Boxee an open platform, and to give users the tools to tailor their experience…
For parents that means access to great kids programming from Kid Mango & Qubo along with parental locks and filters to ensure children don’t see and can’t access adult content on Boxee.
For adults – it means giving them the freedom of the Internet and letting them decide what they want to watch – just like they do in their web browsers.
Andrew
Wow… glad you got a company that rips off photographers and models. Kudos to that. I still love Boxee anyway and will be attending.