Boxee Media Center to Drop Hulu.com Support

In a bit of bad news for those early adopters of Boxee's media center software, Hulu.com has asked Boxee's developers to stop including Hulu as a service.  According to a blog post from Hulu CEO Jason Kilar:

"Our content providers requested that we turn off access to our content via the Boxee product, and we are respecting their wishes. While we stubbornly believe in this brave new world of media convergence — bumps and all — we are also steadfast in our belief that the best way to achieve our ambitious, never-ending mission of making media easier for users is to work hand in hand with content owners. Without their content, none of what Hulu does would be possible, including providing you content via Hulu.com and our many distribution partner websites.

Our mission to make media dramatically easier and more user-focused has not changed and will not change. We will not stop until we achieve it and we are sober in our assessment that we have such a long way to go."

As a Boxee user myself, I'm extrememly disheartened by this bit of news since I felt Hulu support was one of Boxee's major selling points.  It's a major misstep on the part of the content creators, and a confusing one, particularly because there's not a compelling reason given for the withdrawn support.  After all, the ads are still there and all the content is intact.  And it's not a traffic-direction issue, since Hulu lets you embed videos in your own web pages.  The only real change here is inconvenience for the user as he/she uses a web browser to do exactly the same thing they did with a remote last week.  So what gives?

According to Avner Ronen at Boxee's blog, the developers are going to fight to get Hulu.com back on the menu for Boxee users, so all may not be lost:

"Our goal has always been to drive users to legal sources of content that are publicly available on the Internet. we have many content partners who are generating revenue from boxee users and we will work with Hulu and their partners to resolve the situation as quickly as possible."

Here's hoping it gets resolved sooner rather than later. Hulu's the major reason I don't have a cable bill.

--Aric A.

Comments

[Mark Chien on February 21, 2009 at 10:23 AM]

I have this on my AppleTV. I'm assuming that if I don't upgrade my Boxee version, I'll continue to have Hulu?

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[snap dome on August 20, 2010 at 07:13 PM]

I have't had it.

[snap dome on September 06, 2010 at 07:16 PM]

wow,so bad news for all adopters

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