Beta Survey Results

Thanks to the 1,700 of you who took the time to respond to our Beta survey in January. We wanted to share some of what we learned with you…
 
90% of you think it works pretty well or great (thanks for your patience and understanding during our outages). You seem to like Hulu (42%) and Netflix (33%) the best, and you hate that the trick play features don’t work well (ff and rew) and that you get data corrupt or other errors. We hate that too! We are working on ways to make PlayOn more reliable. This one surprised us – 46% of you use PlayOn every day (once or more) and 46% use it once or twice a week. Your couches are back in use – wooohooo.
 
The top 5 product feature requests:
1 – Media Sharing from the PC (yes, we are working on it – it should be out by the end of the summer!)
2 – Customized RSS feeds (we just launched a plugin API – so have at it)
3 – Mac and Linux support (don’t hold your breath)
4 – Wii support (coming next month!)
 
Top 5 content provider requests:
1 – ABC (coming….)
2 – Discovery
3 – Comedy Central
4 – History Channel
5 - Pandora
 
And – finally, 57% of you had already purchased at the time of the survey, 15% planned to, and 25% were on the fence.
 
So – thanks for the GREAT feedback. We are working on YOUR top priorities now, and plan to launch our Q2 survey this month…so keep the feedback coming.

Amazon VOD and Revision 3 Added to the PlayOn Lineup

We are excited to let you know that you can now access more than 40,000 movies and TV episodes available to rent or buy instantly from Amazon Video On Demand. And, you can now access original entertainment and content from Revision 3, a TV network for the Web. The latest PlayOn release adds support for both services.

With support for Amazon Video on Demand, Revision 3, Hulu, CBS.com, Netflix Watch Instantly, YouTube, ESPN.com, CNN.com, we hope that PlayOn will become the most robust browser enabling you to watch Internet video content on your TV.

The latest release is available for download at http://www.themediamall.com/download (2.59.3352). We aren't pushing an auto-update yet, so if you want to check it out, you will have to download and install it from the www.getplayon.com website.

This release was based in large part on requests from our user base for more content...and it won't end there, we are still working on adding support for more Internet video content.

Both CrunchGear and Audioholics wrote about the new release today...so feel free to check out the articles and add your .02 on PlayOn. As always - we love to know what you think!

Release Candidate 6 and Beta User Survey

Yesterday, our developers posted version 2.59.3302 (RC6). It is essentially the same as RC5, but we've reset the trial period to a fresh 14 days. This means all of you who were reluctant to purchase over the past few months, due to bugs or just not being convinced, get a chance to try things out again.

For those of you who have already purchased, you do not need to purchase again - the trial is for folks who didn't have a chance to try it out enough to make the purchase decision. Of course, everyone should download the latest version (it knows if you have already purchased a license, and you won't need to buy another one!)

We plan on posting the production version around the beginning of February. There will be some additional bug fixes and a few streamlining features, but no big core functionality changes. And we'll reset the trial again then, to yet another 14 days. Which gives many of you a chance to try out PlayOn free for an entire month.

One last note: the price for PlayOn will be increasing from $29.99 to $39.99 once we release the production version. We are keeping it at $29.99 through the month of January as a thank you to our early adopters, for sticking with us during the beta process. Please note - if you have already bought a license or if you buy one at $29.99, you will NOT need to buy another one once the product release is out, or once the price goes up to $39.99. You will automatically get the production version at no additional cost.

We have also posted a survey www.themediamall.com/playonsurvey which we'd love for you to fill out if you have tried PlayOn. This will help us prioritize future development.

Thanks again for your support!

New PlayOn Facebook Page

As part of our efforts to get the word out about PlayOn, we have just launched a new Facebook page. We are trying to build up a community in advance of our launch so that we can hit the ground running and start getting the word out about PlayOn. We'd love your help! Check out the page, become a fan, post a video. In fact, we are offering a free license key ($30 value) for the person who posts the most creative video showing how COOL PlayOn is. And - of course, everyone is entitled to a free 14 day trial....

So - check it out - share your thoughts and feedback - and let us know why YOU think PlayOn is cool (or not....)

PlayOn Gives New Life to the Xbox 360 and Helps Fuel the Trend Toward TV Access to Online Video

A recent blog post made us re-think the value of PlayOn – extending the life of the Xbox 360? That’s what Joe implies http://joeinmotion.blogspot.com/2008/10/playon-hulu-360-couch-potato-mode.html. Yes, the Xbox is supposed to get Netflix later this year through a Microsoft-Netflix partnership, and that is very exciting to Netflix and Xbox 360 users. But the fact that today, through PlayOn, Xbox 360 users can access videos from Hulu, CBS and Netflix could get some frustrated Xbox 360 users from here to there – and who knows? …perhaps they will stick with the PlayOn service even after the upgrade since you don’t need Xbox Live Gold Membership to access Netflix with PlayOn, but you will with the native Xbox support. And – we plan to make it even more compelling in an upcoming release by enabling you to browse the entire Netflix Watch Now library, not just the titles you have added to your Instant Queue – the native Xbox solution will not offer this, nor does the Roku box. All the more reason to keep your Xbox and use PlayOn!

Brian Dipert of EDN also commended PlayOn as a way to get Netflix before the Fall Release for the Xbox 360 in his recent post http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=blog&blog_id=400000040&blog_post_id=230034423. He evaluates a number of alternatives and has lots of great things to say about PlayOn – thanks Brian. We are excited about the power of our browser/media player and hope we can help in the multi-company/multi-solution effort to get folks out of their office chairs and back on their couches in front of their TV’s!

Finally – I have to mention Nick Wingfield’s Oct. 3rd article in the Wall Street Journal entitled Turn On, Tune Out, Click Here about folks who are watching TV shows on their Computers.  PlayOn was left out of the article (unfortunately for us), and Nick mentions that “Viewers [of Online Video] must either watch shows on their personal computers, or use a device like Apple TV, which allows them to download shows from the Internet onto their television sets.” Nick goes on to say “Within the next several years, however, media and technology executives say that a host of new technologies will make television access to online video a mainstream phenomenon. Vudu Inc. already sells a $299 set-top box with a remote control that allows users to download television shows for $1.99 per episode. Microsoft and Sony both sell television shows that users of their Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 videogame consoles can download over the Internet for viewing on television sets. Netflix subscribers can buy a $99 set-top box from Roku Inc. that streams videos on their television sets. The service is included at no extra charge in the monthly Netflix fee for renting DVDs.” Well, Nick, there is no need to wait! As we know, the 15+ million Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 owners do not need to wait several years, buy a $299 or $99 set-top box and pay $1.99 (or anything) per episode to watch NBC, Fox, CBS, ESPN shows or Netflix movies on their TV. A mere $30 of PlayOn software and NO NEW BOX can accomplish all that (and more)! While we’re bummed to have been left out, we think Nick points out an important trend and highlights some of the great companies helping to make it all possible.

We are excited to hear such excitement around PlayOn – and encourage folks to keep the comments and suggestions coming – and we’ll keep the upgrades coming!

Website is back UP!

Thanks to all for your patience. The website and ability to download PlayOn is [finally] fully functional. Yes - we were down for about 30 hours due to higher than expected volume. It seems that Netflix support was in high demand and we are thrilled to be able to offer it in the latest Beta version of PlayOn.

We have also reset everyone's trial period to day 1 of a 45 day trial. We want to make sure that everyone has at least 45 days to take Netflix for a spin before purchasing PlayOn.

We apologize for the inconvenience and hope that you will take this opportunity to give PlayOn a try.

Apologies!

We know that some of you can't access Hulu via PlayOn right now. So sorry! We have identified the issue and are working on resolving it asap. We will post a hot fix in the next couple of days - you will not be required to re-download. We will send notification once this is complete as well as any instructions required.

Thanks for your patience during this Beta period!

UPDATE: David here. We just posted a new release (2.58.3172) a few moments ago. It should address the Hulu issue, as well as a few other bug fixes. The hot fix couldn't be used this time around, so it's a full installation (sorry about that). You should be able to just install the latest over your current installation, but it never hurts to uninstall your current one. Go to www.getplayon.com to download the latest release.

New Beta Version

OK - the 3rd version of the PlayOn beta is live. We sent it out to a select set  of Beta testers and it seems to be performing well, so now it is available to all Beta users - www.themediamall.com/playon.  It fixes a host of bugs and adds some of the most requested features:

YouTube (User Playlists/Subscriptions and Published videos)

Hulu (Movies, New categorization of episodes and clips with season and episode numbers)

Added an optional icon in the system tray to see the status of the server, and made it such that you can disable it from automatically starting when windows starts

We continue to crank away on incremental features as we move toward launch. We have been getting great feedback so far and are still listening! So please let us know if you have thoughts on PlayOn!

Over 5,000 in 1 Week and Counting

PlayOn is officially one week old (at least in its beta form). And - we have had 2 releases in that one week -- the initial release and a release that had a big bug fix and added support for Windows 64-bit. And - we have gotten TONS of great feedback - in the form of support requests, user forum entries, and just plain feedback.

All we can say is Thanks! Thanks to the 5,000 of you who have downloaded and installed PlayOn (or in some cases re-downloaded & re-installed PlayOn 2-3 times). Thanks to those of you who have helped identify and diagnose bugs and new features. Thanks to those of you who have figured out how to use PlayOn on other devices for which we do not have the testing facilities. And thanks to those who have written about us or told a friend about PlayOn.

We are humbled (and delighted) by the words of encouragement from many of you. We have worked long and hard on PlayOn with the goal of making it as simple and easy-to-use as possible, and appreciate your taking the time to send us your thoughts on how we are doing. We also take your words of advice/criticism very seriously - this is what helps us make PlayOn better - so keep it coming!

So - thanks again! - The MediaMall Team

More Devices You can PlayOn!

Fascinating! - we keep receiving reports from Beta users that PlayOn works on their other DLNA compliant devices. So - thanks to the brave beta users who have been "playing around" with PlayOn - we can now report a much larger list of devices that you can PlayOn. In addition to the PLAYSTATION 3, Xbox 360, and HP MediaSmart TV, we have reports that PlayOn works on:

D-Link DSM-520
D-Link DSM-750
Popcorn Hour A-100
Pioneer Elite PRO-1140HD TV
DirecTV HR21-100 HD DVR
DirecTV HR20 Receiver

If you have one of these devices, try it out - and let us know how PlayOn does. We haven't tested it on all of these devices, so we can't give you installation instructions, but if you get it figured out -- feel free to share your experience with the rest of us!