2009 December 08 « Daily Marauder

GAY OR STRAIGHT?: BLACKBOX REPUBLIC ATTEMPTS TO ANSWER THE QUESTION by Marauder

December 8, 2009, 8:02 PM
Filed under: Feature | Tags: Facebook, United States, Social network, Nevada, Burning Man, Match.com, Online dating service, Blackbox Republic, April Donato, Sam Lawrence

GAY OR STRAIGHT?: BLACKBOX REPUBLIC ATTEMPTS TO ANSWER THE QUESTION

“Bisexuality doubles your chances of a date on a Saturday night.” –Woody Allen

Blackbox Republic, a private network for dating and friendships, launched today with a focus on “keepin’ it real” with regards to sexual orientation and relationship style. With hundreds of online dating sites, I hardly saw the need for yet another. I sat down, via phone, with CEO Sam Lawrence to try and figure out what this new site brings to the dating table.

About a year and a half ago, co-founders April Donato and Sam Lawrence packed an RV for a 17-hour drive from Portland, OR to Burning Man in the Nevada desert. That’s one hell of a long time in a vehicle with someone. Left without their digital devices to distract them, they resolved to participate in that time-honored tradition of speaking to each other. They began to chat about relationships from friendships to dating. From mass-market social networks like Facebook, to straight up online dating sites like Match.com, they didn’t feel like there was an outlet that represented what they were looking for in an online meeting place.

Hence, Blackbox Republic came to fruition, aided by $1M in angel funding. In essence, the site allows users to prescribe who they are and what they are looking for with a degree of gay [cough] [cough]…gray. Common American perception leads us to believe that each of us is either gay or straight. Delve a little deeper and you will find that sexual orientation comes in all sorts of flavors. Sam exploded my brain a bit trying to break this all down for me.

From hetero to gay, there are 5 different possibilities. Users provide their selections using Kayak-like sliders on their profile pages. Sam and I discussed one particular example, which clarified the situation for me.

While testing the product out in focus groups across the country, he met a man who, for the most part, identified himself as gay. That said, he did like to have a relationship with a woman from time to time. Typically, this is a choice that is not respected within the gay community and therefore was something that he did not share with most people. On the flip side of the orientation equation, if he were to mention the possibility of dating women to his parents, they would have him mentally married with children in minutes.

His slider would therefore be somewhere between gay and bi. Frankly, these identifications of orientation, status, partners, etc fuel my entire interest in the site. Sam adds, “The only choices before now were advertising-focused public spotlights like Facebook, or online personals sites built around chemistry tests and splintered by race, sexual orientation or religion. We are aiming for something radically different. If Facebook and Match.com had a hot love child it would be Blackbox Republic.” A hot love child that could potentially be halfway between hetero and bi.

Not only does Blackbox allow you the tools to more accurately identify yourself, it provides a walled-in garden so that you could hopefully feel more comfortable sharing these things. The site is subscription-based, intended to weed out the riff raff. A basic subscription starts at $5/month and travels up the scale to $49 depending on features and the number of people joining together. I mean, what better way to get your threesome all using the same social network? In addition, users are verified by the community using a voucher system.

Here’s where I am a bit confused. When I asked Sam the purpose of Blackbox from friendship-based to dating, he responded that the site is intended to provide a place for people to be real with each other. Conversations on the site range from friendship to dating with leads to some confusion on what I would be using the site for. While I may share what orientation I am to potential partners, I wouldn’t necessarily want all friends to know. In addition, the prioritization of orientation on the site leads me to believe that the site is focused on the LGBT community, which after speaking with Sam is certainly not the case. It is true that online dating sites are somewhat splintered by race, religion, etc but that is because those individuals choose to associate with their particular groups, be it the Jewish community on J-date or the black community on blacksingles.com. The site is well designed and easy to use but I still don’t need another online dating site…and that in my mind, is exactly what this is.

Half of Americans Know Someone Who Has Dated a Person They Met Online, According to New Study from People Media (prweb.com)

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THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX, OR IN THIS CASE IN IT: BOXEE UNVEILED by Martha

December 8, 2009, 9:54 AM
Filed under: Feature | Tags: Andrew Kippen, Avner Ronen, Blip.tv, Box, Boxee, Clicker, D-Link, Facebook, Hulu, Myspace, Netflix, Pandora, Revision3, Suicide Girls, Television, The Escapist, YouTube

THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX, OR IN THIS CASE IN IT: BOXEE UNVEILED

Guest Writer: Martha Rivera

A sold out crowd gathered at the Williamsburg Music Hall in Brooklyn, NY last night for the unveiling of the Boxee beta as well as to catch a glimpse of the highly anticipated Beta Box.

Launched in 2008, Boxee is software that aggregates media content from the web and your personal computer and streams it on your HD television. It searches web based content providers like YouTube, Netflix, MySpaceTV, Blip.TV, CBS.com, Revision3, flickr, and Pandora, among others and brings the content straight to your living room television. Missing still from the list of content providers is the online video site, Hulu. In addition to streaming web content, it also pulls media content from your own personal computer including your ITunes, personal videos and pictures. Boxee is an open source platform allowing users to create their own apps. To date, there are over 300.

“Our biggest challenge is distribution,” said Boxee CEO Avner Ronen. The hurdle is getting cable affiliates and major content providers, like Hulu on board. At the core of the problem is fear of piracy and concern that the advertising is stripped from the content. However, Boxee pulls online content as is, which includes the advertising that is attached to it. Boxee also has the ability to track a host of analytics far outweighing television’s usage reporting. Ronen is hoping media companies and cable providers will become comfortable once they understand usage.

Four weeks ahead of its wide release at CES, Ronen introduced the beta software and Boxee Box, as well as announced the launch of 3 new apps: the hipster soft-core site Suicide Girls, the online gamer e-zine The Escapist and Clicker, TV guide, entertainment search engine and DVR all rolled into one.

Boxee Beta

Overall, Boxee Beta looks great and is much more user-friendly. The UI has been streamlined with a new layout. The menu, previously hidden, is now front and center. The home screen has been redesigned to feature the main menu, featured content, personal queue and the friend feed.

My favorite social networking feature is the ability to connect to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Any media that your friends or followers share with you will automatically populate on your queue. Too busy to watch videos at work? Don’t have the ability to watch video because you don’t have an office or are on the go? Another feature allows a viewer to send media assets to your queue so you can watch when you get home.

The search function has also been streamlined. Now users can search for movies, TV shows as well as local and online content at once. Boxee Beta populates all content from your computer as well as from any web source that works with Boxee. Of note, you can now mark content as “watched.” Better yet, the search function lets you omit “watched” content from the results.

Boxee focused specifically on TV shows in the Beta redesign. TV shows are now organized by season and episode. You can follow your favorite TV shows, and like Hulu, it will automatically populate your queue with new episodes.

Another new feature is the Global Menu. This menu is essentially the shortcuts screen. It provides quick access to predetermined shortcuts, favorite apps, history, and settings.

Other features include allowing users to interact with the apps without having to download them, a now playing button on every screen allowing easier navigation back to the player, a new Last.fm and flickr interface as well as a main background that changes based on the time of day.

As of this writing, 85% of Boxee’s 700,000 users use a Mac. However, Boxee Beta has not forgotten about its Windows’ friends. It will now run on Direct X, which will mean a better experience for the PC user.

Boxee Box by D-Link

The night also included the highly anticipated unveiling of the Boxee Box. Boxee partnered with D-Link, better known as the makers of wireless routers, to create the hardware. Astro Studios, the cutting edge designers behind products like the X-Box 360 and Nike, designed the sleek cube. This small black submerged cube will sit on top of the many boxes taking up space near your TV. The guys at Boxee hope that eventually you’ll do away with all those boxes and just use the Boxee Box.

The Boxee Box will retail at $200 and will be available for distribution sometime in 2Q10.

Why Boxee?

I’m a three-screen user. I watch TV, while surfing on my laptop, with my phone not far away. Having used the Alpha, I don’t know if I can give up my computer that easily. As I was navigating the web content on Boxee, I found my multi-tasking self wanting to toggle out of the screen to search the web while the video played. Because I was unfamiliar with the navigation, or more like because I’m a specific type of navigator, all of a sudden I felt trapped. According to Andrew Kippen, VP of Marketing, “Boxee is about fighting tradition. It’s streamlining your viewing experience by consolidating it all into one. Boxee is the tip of the iceberg for what’s possible.”

The Boxee Beta version seems much more straightforward. It’s easy-to-use features will allow users to not feel so (excuse the pun) boxed in. Then again, in this case, that’s what the creators of Boxee want you to do. Engage with the content within the box.