PlayOn Premium is coming! We will release PlayOn Premium on July 15th, 2010. It will include: Comedy Central (including South Park), NHL, TV.com, MTV.com, VH1.com, and more. It will be sold as an annual subscription -- $39.99 for the first year and $19.99/year thereafter. Your subscription will entitle you to all new content services over the course of the year (and we plan to release a lot), as well as functionality improvements (including a greatly enhanced and integrated Plugin experience, Gold version of the Wii, and much more). We will also be releasing iPhone support for PlayOn Premium which may carry a small additional fee.

Starting on May 20, 2010, we will no longer sell PlayOn as a lifetime license for a single fee. We will start selling PlayOn as a subscription ($39.99 for the first year and $19.99/year thereafter) on May 20, 2010. Customers who purchase PlayOn on or after May 20,2010 will automatically receive PlayOn Premium upon its launch on July 15th, 2010.

We will continue to honor the lifetime licenses for those that purchased PlayOn prior to May 20, 2010 (which we are now calling PlayOn Basic). Your PlayOn Basic will continue to work with the existing non-beta content (Hulu, Netflix, CBS.com, ESPN.com, CNN.com, YouTube, MyMedia and Plugins) as well as Amazon VOD, MLB.tv, and Pandora. After July 15th, 2010, The Daily Show and the Colbert Report will no longer be supported in PlayOn Basic as these are being launched out of beta as part of the full Comedy Central integration in PlayOn Premium. PlayOn Base will continue to receive new features and development support, but no new content will be added into the core (though you can always add more plugins).

To thank our loyal customers, if you purchased PlayOn prior to May 20, 2010, we will be offering a founding member discount for PlayOn Premium. You may upgrade to PlayOn Premium for only $4.99 for the first year ($19.99/year thereafter). Once you purchase the upgrade, you will receive a new license key which will unlock the new PlayOn Premium content. You may also cancel your subscription at any time, and go back to PlayOn Basic (be sure to save your original license key). We are sure you will enjoy the new content and features so much, you will never want to go back.

Between now and July 15th, 2010, you will see a number of content services in PlayOn listed as “Premium Preview” – this is to give you a sneak preview of some of the content that you will have access to as a Premium subscriber. Please note that this content will no longer be accessible after July 15th 2010. We hope you enjoy these previews and encourage you to upgrade on July 15th.

Why are we doing this? The annual subscription fee will fund continued development and support. We want to ensure that we can always give the latest and greatest content and service to our entire user base. The on-going subscription fee will allow that. Give it a shot – we think you’ll like what you see.

If you have any additional questions, please contact us at support@playon.tv

Richard Lawler, who writes for EngadgetHD, just gave PlayOn the Thumbs Up. The PlayOn Beta has only been available for the past 12 hours and he has already downloaded it and watched Psych on his PS3. Impressive. He says that while his experience was good, he'd wait before paying the $30 post-trial price. OK, we hear you. We'll earn your $30. We'll add Netflix and CNN as we move from Beta to GA (General Availability). We'll continue to make it better and better with your feedback. After all - there is no advertising in the interface (yes, Hulu has pre-rolls and mid-rolls to support their business), but the license fee is the only way we can support the product -- and we do have to eat...at least every once in a while ;).

Mike Smith of Yahoo! Games just wrote a great article entitled "5 Reasons to Cancel Your Cable" and named PlayOn as the #1 reason, since it allows you to watch Hulu on your big screen TV. He also mentions some other great technologies, such as Zune and Netflix's new on-demand feature (which will be available on your TV via PlayOn soon as well). As Mike mentioned, we are getting ready to release the Beta version of PlayOn today! We are buttoning up some last things, and getting ready to post the link and email all the folks who have signed up to be a Beta user. We are really excited to hear what folks think.

If you are interested, you can sign up to be a beta user as well -- and spread the word - getplayon.com!

Well, gotta get back to work on getting the website ready for the launch.

We are on track to launch the PlayOn Beta for the PS3 and Xbox360 in 19 days! It is looking great. We have decided on the name PlayOn (what do ya think?) for the product that will allow you to PLAY Hulu, YouTube, CBS.com, and ESPN.com ON your TV via your PS3 or Xbox360. We are still rounding up Beta users, and in fact I just received an email yesterday from a gamer that works over at Yahoo! Videogames, and I quote:

"Sounds awesome! I was just complaining to a friend the other day that I can't watch Hulu on my bigscreen because it doesn't let you download the video and stream it. So count me in for the beta. ;)"

Thanks Richard - we are excited too! And - if you have a PS3, Xbox360 or HP MediaSmart TV, you can be a Beta user as well -- just shoot an email to tracy@themediamall.com and let me know what device you have, and we will put you on the list for the August 18th Beta release. Oh - and like all Betas, the release will be free for Beta users! So, come on and join in the countdown fun!

Cheers!

Webtrends just announced that they have enhanced their video tracking metrics to enable advertisers to better measure the results of (and return on) their video advertising. This is good news as video advertising increases in importance. And, it is critical to those of us who will depend upon video advertising to support our product.

Our hope is to enable you to watch your favorite YouTube and Hulu videos on your TV. And - we want to make this VERY affordable (as free as possible). In order to do that, we plan to support the service with unobtrusive ads that run while you are searching for your video. In order for any advertisers to be interested, we will need to supply these critical metrics as to how much of the ad you saw, and if you expressed interest in learning more about the product. Webtrends and other services such as Visible Measures make reporting on video ads as data rich as static web ads - a critical piece to this developing medium.

So - as we continue on our quest to get your favorite videos off your computer and onto your TV, it is good to know that the supporting industries are evolving as well. Spread the news to potential advertisers - we still have some ad space available on ActiveTV!

So I have been visiting the many PS3, Xbox360, and Wii forums to try to figure out how to garner interest for beta users of our new game console product (I blogged about here)...and I have realized that I am SO not a gamer! The lingo, the avatars, the passion for games and game consoles - it's intimidating! I LOVE video (ok, mildly addicted) and the internet has the best library around -- so Active-TV really appeals to me. I think folks who have PS3s/Xboxs/Wiis will be psyched to use them to play internet video on their TVs, but the fact of the matter is - I really don't know how to talk to them. So - if you know of a way to get in front of a bunch of gamers or want to help out -- let me know!

Some of the gamer forums I have come across include: gamepro, ps3forums, boardsus.playstation.com, psu.com, and playfire. If you know of others -- let me know as well!

tracy@themediamall.com

So according to Adweek, some Tivo owners can finally watch YouTube on their TV! Bummer that it is only thousands that have a powerful enough box to do so. Tivo despirately needs to embrace Broadband Video as its increasing relevance may negate the need for Tivo altogether (with sites like Hulu and ABC.com). This is a step in the right direction -- as I mentioned in my post on Broadband's Abundance.

We want to take it much farther than the thousands who will be able to watch YouTube on their TV via their Tivo -- we want to open up not just YouTube, but also Hulu and ESPN.com and CBS.com and CNN.com to the millions (over 5 million) of folks who have PS3s or Xbox360s -- so they can watch these Internet-based videos on their TVs. I mentioned this on my last blog post where I invited PS3 owners and Xbox360 owners to try out our Beta. The offer is still open - email me at tracy@themediamall.com.

As always - would love to hear your thoughts!

We have had great feedback from our DSM-520 users, and we want to offer ActiveTV to many more users!  We are completing development on a UPnP version of ActiveTV...it will first be available for the PS3, XBox 360, and HP MediaSmart TV.  It will offer a limited but powerful set of video content sources, including Hulu, YouTube, CBS.com, CNN.com, ESPN.com, and Netflix.  WOW.  And -- to kick it all off, we are offering a FREE Beta version for folks who have one of these game consoles/TVs.  If you are interested in participating in our Beta, you can subscribe to this blog (we will be offering all subscribers the Beta version) or drop me an email at tracy@themediamall.com and I'll make sure you get on the Beta list!  It is still about 2 months out, but it is something to look forward to this fall!