Boxee has just announced their new Payment Platform, a system to offer pay-per-view and subscription content to paying customers. Boxee expects to take a small percentage of the payment – under 30% – for the service.
This would in turn enable services like PayTV and a la carte media downloads, an important part of Boxee’s monetization plan. With the launch of the Boxee Box and the appearance of the new Beta version.
This is a great move by Boxee in terms of differentiating itself from other media services. It would be a great way for them to grab some of the untapped market share out there (read “porn and indie movies”) and give Netflix and other streaming services a run for their money.
From the BoxeeBlog:
As content owners benefit, so will Boxee. While details are still to-be-determined, Boxee will charge a small fee (i.e. lower than the 30% charged by many app stores) for transactions which we enable. This beginning to the Boxee business model ties our success as a business to the success of our partners.
This is a direct result of the generational shift towards over the top video during the past few years. Recent college grads will tell you the Internet is vital to them in a way PayTV could never be. Their social, professional, and family lives are reinforced by (and sometimes wholly self-contained within) the social networks, blogs, and interaction the Internet provides. This generation has turned to the Internet for their entertainment needs as well.
The move towards the Internet as a main source of entertainment does not mean everything will be free however. The iTunes store has already shown us that people are willing to pay for content when it’s affordable and easy to access. Our goal is to equip the content providers that we’ve spoken with over the past year, both big and small, with a way to monetize their content above and beyond the advertising-only model.
It’s our belief that the Internet is ready to become the 4th method of distribution for broadcast & premium content after Cable, Satellite, and IPTV (FiOS, u-Verse, etc.). In the case of Satellite and IPTV, it took an act of congress to open up these delivery methods. This time it’s people who are demanding this change.