Brian Crescimanno

My favorite part of owning my own home is that have a dedicated home theater.  It's certainly not as impressive as the basement theaters showcased on AVS Forum but I enjoy it.  I also have a dedicated Home Theater PC (HTPC) on which I run both XBMC and Boxee.  If you haven't used Boxee, it's a great piece of software that marries locally stored content with content from the web.  Naturally, one the great sources online for content is Hulu--and up until February 2009, Boxee had great Hulu support including forced playback of all the ads you would see were you viewing the content on the Hulu website.

In February, Hulu made the decision to block Boxee from accessing its content.  Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu, made a passionate blog post about why Hulu was removing Boxee access.

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.

Fast Forward to May 28 when Hulu releasaes their Hulu Desktop product to copious amounts of fanfare.  While I applaud their moving forward, I can't help but now see Hulu as a very dishonest company.

Before I get too negative here, it's certainly possible that these content providers have changed their stance on providing alternative, non-browser interfaces to Hulu that seem better designed for a more traditional mode of viewing television content.  If that's the case, I certainly applaud the content providers as well for embracing the future!

Unfortunately, there is evidence that the reality is that Hulu intended to compete in this space and wants to shut any potential competing technology out of its system.  Most notably is a warning dialog that appears on a mac when running Hulu Desktop stating (incorrectly) that Boxee can cause problems with the Apple Remote.  Additionally, their deliberate blocking of Boxee's new, browser-based method of accessing Hulu through Boxee continue today.  Team Boxee has already requested that they be allowed to reintegrate Hulu into Boxee now that the situation has changed--and the response will be very telling of Hulu's intentions.

I truly hope that this is a case of "we changed our minds," but I fear that the situation was more about Hulu giving up 100% control over the interface than the fears of content providers.

That said, I enjoy the notion that I can now (with full support) view Hulu content on my HTPC through an interface clearly designed for television use. However, the experience is soured by not being integrated as Boxee was able to provide it.  And, of course, by the diminished respect I have for a company I appear to be unable to trust.

Technorati: boxee, hulu

Taking a quick break today from the technical, I want to comment on the hype machine that's sprung up around today's announcement of TypeKit.  The entire post is worth reading, but the primary paragraph is:

That’s where Typekit comes in. We’ve been working with foundries to develop a consistent web-only font linking license. We’ve built a technology platform that lets us to host both free and commercial fonts in a way that is incredibly fast, smoothes out differences in how browsers handle type, and offers the level of protection that type designers need without resorting to annoying and ineffective DRM.

Obviously, this sounds fantastic.  A legal way to use any font in our designs for the web is something that just about everyone in this business has been interested in for years.   Excitement is natural (take a look at #typekit on Twitter to see the overwhelming response).

There's just one problem; the aformentioned blog post contains no details on how this system actually works.  It's very light on details and, let's be totally honest, is nothing more than a press release about an upcoming product.  I want to stress that there's nothing wrong with being excited.  However, things take a nasty turn when the web hype machine spins up.  Andy Clarke pontificates that Typekit will change everything.  The comments on the original post are filled with quote such as:

An amazing piece of work, thanks for cutting through the issues so effectively.

Genius idea – exact solution that web needs right now! Thanks, can’t wait!

Keep it UP! Get it GOIN’! Congrats all around.

Wow this is beyond huge I’m interested to see how this all plays out.

The best news i have heard in a long time.

I don't mean to insult Jeff or his team in any way--and I don't want to be seen as the most cynical person on the web today; but aren't we getting just a little bit ahead of ourselves?  Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that they are working with the foundries and trying to find a workable solution that makes everyone happy.  But an advance press release is no reason to start a Typekit Love-Fest.

Should this solution turn out to be everything it's promised, I'll be the first to congratulate the team on solving one of the biggest problems that web design has faced.  Until then, I'll leave the hype machine to its own devices and watch comfortably from the sidelines.

Technorati: hype, typekit

A List Apart has published their 2008 survey.  The information gleaned from this survey, as last year, should prove quite enlightening.

I encourage you to head over and take the 2008 A List Apart Survey now!

Technorati: a list apart, survey

Adobe today announced the creation of the Open Screen Project to help facilitate the adoption of Flash and Flash-based technologies on a wide range of platforms. There's plenty of coverage out there today about this initiative--and it's no surprise. For years developers have been calling for an opening up of Flash and it looks like Adobe is ready to give it to us.

The big takeaway: Developers are now free to create their own versions of Flash Player.

First, this is fantastic news for the open source community and projects like Ubuntu who now have the opportunity to create a true "free software" version of the Flash player. Free software purists around the world rejoice!

But there's more to it than just Free Software. Apple's current SLA for the iPhone SDK would not allow Adobe's Flash Player to be ported to the iPhone platform (barring special exception, which I'm not entirely convinced Apple would be unwilling to give). Could Apple develop its own version of Flash Player optimized for the iPhone? The Open Screen Project certainly looks that way--and I honestly can't help but wonder if that's part of the reason Adobe's decided that now is the proper time to announce this project. Given the number of partners (and the conspicuous-in-their-absence-Apple) I'd hesitate to say that the iPhone SDK was a cause for this action; but it certainly may have influenced the timing. One thing's for certain; it very much puts the ball back into Apple's court on the issue of Flash on the iPhone.

I am one of the camp that believes Apple has no interest in seeing Flash on the iPhone. Flash competes too directly with a major Apple technology--Quicktime--for Apple to want to see it there. That said, with the onus now on Apple with regard to Flash on the iPhone, I think the boys at Adobe might have out-maneuvered ol' Steve on this one.

And that might be the most impressive part of it all.

Technorati: adobe, air, apple, flash, flex, iPhone, iPhone SDK, open screen project