via venturebeat.com
Once upon a time, my former roommates and I had a Roku, and it was great. It's a slick experience, more passive than Boxee but still chock full of content from myriad sources. I've always considered Roku the "non-geek's Boxee," in a positive way.
They offer a wide array of devices to bring internet video to your non-connected TV. The newest, $50 Roku LT comes in at 720p and includes the Roku staples everyone loves: Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, TWiT, and the rest.
Roku's problem has been the proliferation of set-top boxes, as well as the popularity of platforms like Xbox Live for accessing video online. And now, Xbox might just become the set-top box, further eating into Roku's market. This product hopes to draw the eye of folks whose TVs might already be connected, either natively or via their cable provider's box.
$50 is definitely impulse-buy territory, but it's unclear whether or not Roku can truly garner the attention they're hoping for in the shadow of bigger, more widely-known brands. I think they need to be advertising the massive amount of content they make available as the primary means of marketing this new device. New awareness of their impressive content selection coupled with the affordability of this latest device would likely give them a solid push in an ever-expanding field of larger competitors.
This was originally posted to joeross.posterous.com.
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