SetJam - Latest Comments

Re: The New TV Stack: How to Watch Internet TV on your TV Set

setjam — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:01:27 -0000

Friends, Family, and Once and Future Colleagues,

I'm writing to let you know that today SetJam was acquired by
Motorola Mobility. We are all very excited about this transition
here at SetJam. Motorola and SetJam share the vision of making content delivery, discovery, and consumption seamless across any screen, and as a world leader in video technology, Motorola will provide us with unprecedented levels of reach and distribution.

I want to take this moment to personally thank you for your continued encouragement and support over the past two years. None of this success would have been possible without your backing and belief in us. While this acquisition was in process, we've had to be far less communicative than we normally would be. We greatly look forward to reconnecting with all of you in the New Year. In the mean time, we wish you a happy and healthy holiday season!

Cordially,

Ryan

Ryan Janssen
(Former) CEO, SetJam

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Re: Unedited CEO Letter about First Angel Presentation

setjam — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:01:25 -0000

Friends, Family, and Once and Future Colleagues,

Cordially,

Ryan

Ryan Janssen
(Former) CEO, SetJam

http://cts.vresp.com/u?366f...

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SetJam
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Re: The New TV Stack: How to Watch Internet TV on your TV Set

setjam — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:01:25 -0000

Friends, Family, and Once and Future Colleagues,

Cordially,

Ryan

Ryan Janssen
(Former) CEO, SetJam

http://cts.vresp.com/u?366f...

______________________________________________________________________
This message was sent by Ryan Janssen using VerticalResponse

SetJam
154 Grand Street
New York, New York 10013
US

Read the VerticalResponse marketing policy:
http://www.verticalresponse...

Re: The New TV Stack: How to Watch Internet TV on your TV Set

setjam — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:01:22 -0000

Friends, Family, and Once and Future Colleagues,

Cordially,

Ryan

Ryan Janssen
(Former) CEO, SetJam

http://cts.vresp.com/u?366f...

______________________________________________________________________
This message was sent by Ryan Janssen using VerticalResponse

SetJam
154 Grand Street
New York, New York 10013
US

Read the VerticalResponse marketing policy:
http://www.verticalresponse...

Re: Djangocon.eu presentation slides

Chris McDonough — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 20:21:26 -0000

If we can find enough time (sponsorship?), it should be reasonably easy to make bindings between supervisord and nagios / zenoss /whatever for management purposes. Given that supervisor knows the up/down status of the processes, and has an event system, using it as a component of system monitoring if you're using it to do process monitoring seems to make sense.

Re: Unedited CEO Letter about First Angel Presentation

Bo Bell — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:38:38 -0000

Good Job Ryan - your story is an inspiration to the rest of us!

Re: Unedited CEO Letter about First Angel Presentation

Nathan Roach — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:21:08 -0000

Very interesting article. The "closed door" nature of most pitches means that other entrepreneurs rarely get first hand insight into what their peers are doing. Congratulations on your first round!

Re: Unedited CEO Letter about First Angel Presentation

setjam — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:07:47 -0000

From what they told me this was the first time, but they think it might be a
good model for particular deals in the future. Obviously there was an
unusual amount of trust on this one, but in general, I think it's a better
model than months of hand-wringing that ultimately doesn't do the investors
or the company any good.

Now if I can only find a VC willing to play this game!

Re: Unedited CEO Letter about First Angel Presentation

Nate Westheimer — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:47:40 -0000

Impressively candid.

Re: Unedited CEO Letter about First Angel Presentation

Ro Gupta — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:44:21 -0000

Indeed - great that you shared, RJ. Wonder if David or the others have taken this approach before or was it really a new, spur-of-the-moment idea.

Re: Unedited CEO Letter about First Angel Presentation

Vaibhav Domkundwar — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:07:27 -0000

Ryan, thanks for sharing. I dig the reasoning behind wanting to raise outside money versus investing more of your own. We have all been there and I continue to be in similar situations. All the best with SetJam!

Re: The New TV Stack: How to Watch Internet TV on your TV Set

setjam — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:03:01 -0000

Very cool! I'll have to pick one up and check it out Chris!

Re: The New TV Stack: How to Watch Internet TV on your TV Set

chrispainter — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:52:48 -0000

Couldn't agree more. I'm a big believer in the full web experience and feel that over time with new input devices, this can be realized even on a TV. That was the whole driving force behind starting GlideTV.

Re: The New TV Stack: How to Watch Internet TV on your TV Set

drstarcat — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:00:41 -0000

Well Mike, I guess we'll see you next decade. I can promise that by then, SetJam is going to be AWESOME!

Re: The New TV Stack: How to Watch Internet TV on your TV Set

Mike Lewis — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:28:32 -0000

Well, there are a couple of problems with just hooking up my TV to my computer with a DVI/HDMI cable.

1. I have limited broadband with 1500k down/256k up, 10 Gig peak and 20 Gig offpeak per month.

2. My TV has only "video in" sockets. It's a ten year old 51cm (20 inch) Sharp CRT, standard definition. My last Sharp lasted nineteen years so I hope to get at least another nine out of this one. When Australia does finally switch off its analog TV, I'll just buy a HD DVD recorder and use it to downgrade.

3. My computer's "graphics card" is only a chip on the motherboard with one VGA socket. I'd have to get a DVI card or a VGA to DVI converter.

Re: The New TV Stack: How to Watch Internet TV on your TV Set

setjam — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:26:50 -0000

Wow! That sounds pretty hot Mike! Hooking up a computer to a TV with a
DVI/HDMI cable is pretty easy though, and then you can just stream whatever
you want instantly without having to store it or plan in advance.

I'm a cloud guy. I hate disks and I hate files. I don't store my emails,
I'm annoyed that I have to store my music, and I definitely don't want to
have to store my video library. I want it all online and accessible
whenever and wherever I want!

Re: The New TV Stack: How to Watch Internet TV on your TV Set

Mike Lewis — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:59:34 -0000

That all sounds really complicated and expensive. What I do is download the video with uTorrent, use DVD Flick to convert and write it to a DVD-RW which I then put into my DVD recorder and copy it onto the hard drive. That takes some time - DVD Flick takes several hours using a Pentium 4 underclocked to 2 GHz and copying the DVD can only be done while playing it - but those two stages can be run overnight so I get the result in a few days.

Re: The New TV Stack: How to Watch Internet TV on your TV Set

Jordan Running — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:47:28 -0000

Okay, fair enough. Sorry if I misapprehended your intent. Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

Re: The New TV Stack: How to Watch Internet TV on your TV Set

setjam — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:35:31 -0000

Jordan,

Thanks for the comments, and let me say that I couldn't agree more.
Although I put Boxee in the same category as the other dedicated TV
appliances (partly for simplicity and partly because they have developed a
proprietary TV OS or "browser" in their parlance), I tried to make clear
throughout that they are the MOST open platform among those.

Second, to be fair, the other boxes aren't really as closed as you might
think (especially Roku). It's relatively easy to write a Roku app (without
approval), and though it won't be featured without that, there is a fairly
robust back-channel for those apps.

As far as discovery is concerned, I agree that Boxee's built-in discovery is
a huge step forward, and I probably gave it short-shrift in the piece.

My only concern with Boxee is how much control their "browser" has over the
UI of the apps that are built for it. The great thing about web-browsers is
that they get ENTIRELY out of the way of web apps. I know Boxee has taken a
little more control to make sure that apps on the box work well with the
4-directional remote they use, and the addition of the keyboard is a huge
step forward. I still feel that it's hard to distinguish ourselves with a
unique UI.

Either way, I'm rooting for Boxee. They are a leader in this space, they
are hugely supportive of the NYC tech scene, they have a great community,
and Avner and his partners are genuinely nice guys. I was really just
trying not to make my support THAT obvious and in doing so, might not have
given them their due.

Thanks for making that clear!

Re: The New TV Stack: How to Watch Internet TV on your TV Set

Jordan Running — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:32:58 -0000

This is a thoughtful post and I completely agree with your central thesis. However, I'd like you to reassess the comments wherein you lump Boxee in with TiVo and Roku and other proprietary set-top boxes. (Since it may come up, I should say right up front that I'm not associated with Boxee in any way, nor am I a content producer. I'm a web developer from Iowa. I've been on their limited beta lists and posted on their forums a few times.)

Now, I don't have a Boxee Box--nobody outside of Boxee and D-Link does right now. I can't speak to the openness of that platform, but you're right that it won't be completely open. But Boxee still doesn't deserve to be lumped in with proprietary set-top boxes.

There are a number of things subtly wrong with your characterization (for example, the fact that much of the Boxee software is open source, and its developers push code enhancements back to the open source XBMC project, or that I use Boxee with a $10 IR media center remote, and Mac users can also use the standard Apple remote), but my main beef concerns content and apps. It's significant to me, and to the scope of your article, that anybody can develop an app or channel for Boxee. This can be as easy as publishing a basic RSS feed that Boxee can consume (like any podcast or vodcast), or as involved as writing your own custom app with a completely custom interface, or anywhere in between. Boxee, Inc. does not act as a gatekeeper for apps--they surely screen the apps in their default app repository, but it's easy and practically free for a third-party to run its own repository, and easy for the end-user to add those third-party repositories to their "App Box." There's nothing limited in Boxee's app and content equation except for those limits imposed by content providers (e.g. ads on Hulu).

As for discovery, this is obviously a thorny issue, but the latest version of Boxee is very impressive in that regard, especially when it comes to mainstream television. I can choose any mainstream show--even some 30+ years old--and if Hulu, ABC, NBC, CBS, or Fox is streaming it online Boxee will list all of the episodes available to me. If both ABC and Hulu offer it I can choose my source, and it will stream pretty seamlessly. Obviously there's some fragility to this approach, as Boxee is doing the equivalent of screen-scraping in some of these scenarios, but for watching television and web shows on my TV I have yet to find a better solution than Boxee in regard to content availability and overall experience.

I'm through rambling for now, but in conclusion I'd just like to say that SetJam and Clicker are doing great work and I believe that open is the way of progress. But I think you should view Boxee not as some proprietary monster but rather as an important ally and inspiration. I would like to see a company do Boxee one better and completely open, but ultimately people want to watch TV on their TVs, and Boxee has, by far, come closest to closing that loop, and has done so while remaining relatively open.

Re: The New TV Stack: How to Watch Internet TV on your TV Set

drstarcat — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:28:44 -0000

That's what I do! Mac Mini with a DVI to HDMI cable. I use the Di Novo Mini to control it all. And of course, I use SetJam as my homepage!

Re: The New TV Stack: How to Watch Internet TV on your TV Set

Mark Essien — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:09:56 -0000

Or simply connect your PC to your TV: http://maxklein.posterous.c...

Re: Hello world!

Remik — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:22:32 -0000

test comment