Welcome to Death/Star, a new show we are testing on TechCrunch TV. It’s a product review show with a twist. My co-host, CrunchGear editor John Biggs, and I give our opinions on three hot products. In the inaugural episode we cover the Android-powered Samsung Galaxy Tablet, photo-sharing app Instagram, and the Boxee Box.
To spice things up, we try to go beyond the traditional thumbs up/thumbs down to predict whether each product will end up in the graveyard (in which case we mark it for death) or become a bona fide hit (in which case we give it a star). Hence, the name: Death/Star. A surprise guest appears at the end and punks Biggs (the look on his face is classic).
The idea behind the show is not to do full reviews. You can read our previous review posts for the Galaxy Tab, Instagram (see more posts), and Boxee Box (see also demo video and CEO Avner Ronen interview). It is to evaluate each product’s chances for success and survival.
The full 7-minute episode is above, but we also broke it up into three shorter video segments below for each of the products. We shot the show at one of AOL’s video studios in New York City, and they helped us with the editing as well. Please tell us how you like the show in comments, what products you’d like to see us review next time, and any suggestions for making it better.
Samsung Galaxy Tab segment
Instagram segment
Boxee Box segment
Boxee is a partially open-source freeware media player software platform that integrates personal locally stored media with Internet streaming media along with social networking features. Boxee’s social networking component allows users to share information about what they are watching or listening to with other boxee users or friends on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, etc. Since it is partially open source, users can create their own apps, plug-ins, and skins for it. The framework for Boxee is based on source...
Instagram is a free photo sharing application that allows users to take photos, apply a filter, and share it on the service or a variety of other social networking services, including Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Tumblr, Flickr, and Posterous. The application is compatible with any iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch running iOS 3.1.2 or above or any Android device running Android 2.2 or above. In an homage to both the Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid cameras, Instagram confines photos into a square...
Samsung is one of the largest super-multinational companies in the world. It’s possibly best known for it’s subsidiary, Samsung Electronics, the largest electronics company in the world.
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