Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02
Host:
Road Runner
PC gaming GAMES
PC gaming Tech
| reply to funchords
Re: So is this why Hulu got kicked off of the Boxee?
ZillionTV was going to give out the box for free, until someone pointed out to them that they could sell it. I enjoyed that bit:This service's affiliation to ISPs is so strong, you won't be able to purchase a box anywhere but through your ISP, for a one-time activation fee of $50. Berman said Zillion toyed with offering the boxes for free, but focus groups revealed that consumers would react suspiciously to a free hardware model. Yeah uh, thanks, focus groups. |
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neowulf
join:2000-10-20
Port Orange, FL | I react suspiciously of focus groups that would turn down free hardware... |
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Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
USA
| reply to Karl Bode
Too bad. This could have been the next CueCat. For those who don't remember, back in the Internet Boom, this company gave out USB barcode readers called CueCats. The idea was that ads would have barcodes on them. You'd scan the barcode and your browser would pop open to a website with more information. Don't ask why you couldn't just type out a URL. This was the Internet boom. All logic was out the window.
Anyway, people found out that you could "hack" the barcode readers to read any barcode and run any program you wanted. So you could easily repurpose your free CueCat to serve another purpose if you so wanted. A community sprang up to do just that and CueCat (the company) threatened legal action claiming that they still owned the barcode readers. Unfortunately, for them, they didn't realize that if you give something to someone for free with no contract stating otherwise, you lose ownership of the product. (Doubly so if you mailed the product to people unrequested, as they often did.)
Getting back to ZillionTV, if this box was given out for free, I'm sure it wouldn't be long until some enterprising hacker (in the good sense of the word) figured out how to make the box do something else beneficial to the end user. Perhaps play content from another computer in your house. Still, if someone manages to do this, $50 might not be a bad price to pay for a household video player. It's about the only reason I'd keep an eye on ZillionTV.  |
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