If You've Got Suggestions For Boxee ....

Over the past month, I’ve given out close to 500 invites to Boxee, so many of you all out there probably have some thoughts about what’s good and what’s not so good about the service. Yesterday, Boxee announced that they’ve hired NYC-based UX guru Whitney Hess to help them improve the user experience.

In the blog post they asked for feedback on:

what you like, don’t like, what is missing, how are you using boxee,
when and where are you using boxee, why are you using boxee, etc.

And within a couple hours Whitney was overwhelmed with user feedback so they set up a getsatisfaction account and are now collecting the feedback there.

I am a quid pro quo person, so if you asked for an invite from me and got one, please take some time over the next couple days and go to the getsatisfaction page and let Whitney and Boxee know what needs to get better.

We are big believers in the value of a good user driven design and improvement process. I am very happy to see Whitney and Boxee doing just that. It’s going to make for a much better service. I am sure of it.

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Comments (Archived):

  1. rick gregory

    Thanks for the nudge Fred. Just put up two things that I’d like to see and I’ll do more in a bit. And thanks again for the invite

  2. Jitle

    An option to watch Hulu videos in HD. Everything else has beaten my expectations, and blows away friends when I show it off connected to my tv.

    1. rick gregory

      Make sure you post that at Getsatisfaction…

    1. Nate

      Hey Dan, did you read the part in the Boxee EULA where it specifically forbids talking about your experience using Boxee? :-)I was actually about to install Boxee but out of morbid curiosity I read the “Evaluation and Testing Agreement” and found the non-disclosure terms too onerous. If I’m going to be an unpaid alpha tester I at least want to get a blog post out of it.

      1. Dan Kantor

        hmm, no. Read a EULA?? If I hear from them, I will gladly take it down.

      2. avneron

        it’s outdated… we need to post a new EULA, TOSobviously we have no issue with people talking about boxee

    2. fredwilson

      Dan,Thanks for posting that review. It was very helpful in many ways. I agreethat competing with apple is never going to be easy. They do interfaces sowell.That¹s part of the reason that Boxee has retained a UX person and is goingto work hard on the UI/UX.But the reason that I got the confidence to make this investment is that³open² is not really in apple¹s DNAThey¹ve opened up the iPhone and maybe they¹ll do the same with appleTVBut they haven¹t totally opened up the iPhone. I don¹t see flash on itanytime soon.So that¹s the opening that Boxee will have to run into and then executeflawlesslyThanks again for the review/feedbackfred

  3. daryn

    I’ve been tracking @whitneyhess for a few months on twitter; seems like a great person for the job! Just curious, was this a traditional or social media matchup?

    1. fredwilson

      social media matchup ftw!

  4. othylmann

    I actually had the account before your investment but hey, feedback none the less. posted on getsatisfaction. thank you for supporting boxee

  5. shareme

    Fred,I will turn n in some feedback as in my experience of having written UI libraries before I did notice some minor quirks that should be addressed.Despite the mi nor quirks a real great service and lve the fact that the client can be installed on Linux..

  6. Todd Hartle

    Dude, I’m sure you got tons of invites but no one seems to actually get added to the service. I’ve been applying for months now every time I see them showcased on a podcast and have yet to be let into the alpha. What gives?

    1. fredwilson

      I’ll take care of it

  7. thompsa6

    Just wanted to let you know that the Get Satisfaction page is basically unusable when rendered on my G1. It also claims I don’t have javascript enabled. I will leave my Boxee feedback from my PC when I get in to the office. Would have been nice to do during my hour bus commute in to Boulder though.

    1. fredwilson

      You get a medal for trying!!!

  8. Tom

    I’ll have to let you know what I think when the Windows version comes out. Until then, I can only comment on what other people say. I’d make a second vote for high def on Hulu if its not there. It looks awesome on my TV straight off the website, so it would be nice to have that functionality built in.

  9. fredwilson

    If the media is on the network, boxee can find it and play it

  10. Guy

    I too have to wait for the windows version. While I use a MacBook and have a couple of Mac Mini’s, I still have all my media on the PC (just because I started there and it is not so easy to move it all to the Mac). Thanks for the invite though.

  11. Rob Lindberg

    haha. how about giving me access! im still waiting on that alpha! 😉

  12. BmoreWire

    I’ll have to wait for the windows version to leave my feedback.

  13. Gorkem Turgut OZER

    It is valuable to hear that UX is now boxee’s focus of attention.

  14. Jonathan

    “Quid pro quo” – fair enough! I’m a real fan of what Boxee’s doing, so this post is the nudge I’ve needed to finally get round to participating in Get Satisfaction. Hope my comments on the integration of Tumblr music posts with Boxee are of use – I’ve blogged briefly about the idea at Tumblr itself: http://is.gd/cOEr

  15. Chipotle

    After a few weeks of having Boxee installed on my Apple TV I have noticed a significant decline in our use of Boxee. I will post specifics on the getsatisfaction page, but the causes for the decline in use falls in 2 categories.1) Lack of content. The DVR does a much better job of time shifting of current programming, and media companies seem to be protecting their DVD sales by limiting access to archived material.2) User input device. Again I use Boxee on an Apple TV. Our input device is the Apple Remote which is inadequate for easy navigation. I need an input device somewhere between a mouse and keyboard and a TV remote control.