Cloudy Days Ahead for Slingbox

Michael Wolf
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
14 Responses

When Blake Krikorian made the rounds in 2004-2005 to tell people about his new device called the Slingbox, the founder and then-CEO of Sling Media employed a pretty smart tactic: He coined a term – placeshifting – to describe what exactly it was his company’s flagship product, the Slingbox, actually did. As described by Om, placeshifting was “the concept of watching your television, anywhere, anytime." But, after all that, Sling — and its counterparts Orb Networks, Sony and others — has not become the next big consumer hit. So what happened here? Did Sling and others in the placeshifting market fail to execute? The answer is no. Instead, the avalanche of online content has made placeshifting unnecessary. […]

Question of the Week

Do you think consumers will continue to use the Slingbox in the age of Hulu?

Featured Responses

Marty Picco

2009/07/27 at 14:10

Open the platform and watch TV develop at web speed.
Dave Bullock

2009/07/17 at 10:54

The team at Sling had a great vision, and I expect they anticipated some of these changes...but likely not the impressive scope of the new entries in the market.
Chris Albrecht

2009/07/14 at 10:45

Sling had a limited use case to begin with. Though Hulu's windows for offering content are limited and staggered, it's easier and faster.

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