Akimbo, Free preview trial
Well my off the cuff impression of Akimbo for MCE is not so good. This is not the killer MCE app I was looking for.
I think I approached with an open mind, I didn’t have any particular expectations after looking at the web site, but thought hey some anima and other stuff might be good and worth signing up for.
The premise. Akimbo wants to charge ten bucks a month to deliver their content over your bandwidth (it boggles my mind that anyone would get a dedicated cable like box for this service, but I digress, and that type of box has never been my preference).
My DSL line is a little anemic but hey I figured I could probable mange.
That is only the tip of the iceberg in fees though. Besides the monthly fee, almost every single show I looked at has a fee on top of it, seemly always around two bucks or so. Some as high as five. All the Anima had a price tag, all the marital arts stuff or movies….
Ooo I can watch the travel channel fro free :p, I don’t even watch that crap on Sat in HD I’m sure as hell not going to pay monthly for it a second time. Buy hey maybe that is just me.
Everything has an expiration date on it, free content (what there is of it that is not utter rubbish) is 7 days, paid seems to be 30. Now what the hell, this is going to a DVR, why would I pay for something that is just going to expire, it’s MY disk space and my bandwidth it was delivered over, this should pretty much makes it my property at least in regards to how long I want to keep it. I really don’t understand this approach it is very 1980 but guess that is where the content owners are still stuck.
I might put up with a few restrictions to get access to a incredible huge Netflix size library, sadly not going to happen any time soon, but certainly not for this paltry offering that you have to pay for repeatedly.
I couldn’t find cartoon network on the channel list, maybe it’s not for MCE or something lame like that, really one of the only things that sounded interesting. I’ll have to see if they have updated their lineup listing for MCE, the prerelease stuff was a pretty vague.
All and all there where a grand total of two channels that I’m interested in but won’t use (fee’s all the way down) and a couple others that might be interesting but are a mix of free and fee and frankly the whole things is annoying enough to put me off for good, but I’m going to see if a couple of the kids shows are any good for Kaily
Oh yeah, the UI embedded in MCE seems to be very flaky, I was getting frequent time out’s (load from their new release on MCE maybe the culprit) and other navigational errors pretty constantly. Things like the channel buttons suddenly moving you left instead of up, all would return to normal after hitting enter on something then going back, but it kept happening.
The UI looks like they might have dome some half baked port of their box UI and failed to really shake out the bugs.
I’ll probable post something more towards the end of the 30 day trial but off hand I doubt I will even point out how to use it to Charise, I can tell it would only confuse and irritate her, not a good state to have an already wounded wife in.
Akimbo, so promising, so not even close.
Edit:
The Akimbo rep guy was kind enough to stop by and made a few comments. Setting aside the marketing speak, I do love a company that listens and while I’m not impressed as of yet with this offering, that goes a long way with me. Those that listen (and actually hear) generally will be succeed, in the long run.
He correctly points out that this is a free Preview trial and it’s limited in its content and scope.
Fair enough, but lets all remember about first impressions. Seems to me they might want to rethink what they are offering. I don’t enjoy getting milked for fees (*shakes a fist at wells fargo, and just about everyone else*) and that is what I walked way feeling like it was all about.
October 26th, 2005 at 1:22 pm
re: Akimbo Launces
October 26th, 2005 at 1:29 pm
Well, despite the headline and conclusion, I do thank you for checking out Akimbo for MCE. I’m happy to respond…
Most importantly, what I wish you had mentioned was that the release you used is labelled right on the UI as a “Preview Edition”… and the $10 per month for the basic service is waived during this preview phase. The actual PAY version of the service is still a little ways away. The release that is up now does indeed have some quirks to the UI, some navigational issues, etc. All being addressed… but we do want to get comments on the UI and would love specifics.
Regarding content you couldn’t find… A few (less than 5) of our 100+ content partners have not yet given final approval to carry their content on our MCE version, but we’re working with them to address it. Yes, Cartoon Network is one… and we hope to have it on that platform but I can’t yet promise this or give a date. (feel free to let them know!)
There are at least 250 new programs going up every week at this point and we are busy signing deals for content people have requested. Some large content deals now in the works.
But… right now there’s MLB, Discovery, TLC, NatGeo, A&E, BBC, History Channel, … about 85 other providers. lots of great indy films… music videos, concerts, kids programming, adult content, animation, educational… there’s over 5000 titles now and 1000 more every month now. (half are at our “free” level and therefore included in our preview launch at no charge)
Yes, some of the content on Akimbo is available on the web… content from iFilm, Underground Film, our videoblog partners like Rocketboom and Steve Garfield and others. Where that’s the case, there’s typically no additional charge on Akimbo for it. (And in many cases we’re putting up a higher-res version of the content that will play better on TV.) Many people prefer to use our player or the MCE client to view it on TV rather than in the 2-foot UI of the MCE or a PC. Akimbo is a way to do that for many people, and the $10 a month fee is generally seen as very reasonable since that includes thousands of shows NOT on the web, plus a TV-style interface for those that are. But not everyone, we realize…
Anyway, I’m sorry you didn’t find what you were looking for, the vast majority of people who try it are finding lots of great things and response to this release has been great. I hope you’ll explore more and watch for the final release of the software… and please send specific comments or suggestions. We really do listen…
Thanks,
–Josh Goldman
Akimbo Systems, Inc.
October 26th, 2005 at 1:49 pm
I can only go by what I see. Every show I tested that had any interest for me had a fee.
You can have 200 channels, but if 198 of them are shopping network or travel it really doesn’t mean much (do you hear me Direct TV
). Relevant content is what is important to a user not volume of data, see google vs AOL search of the old days. It’s the 10$+ that the proposition breaks down for me, way to many +’s.
A fair point about it being a preview edition though I’ll add a note, not that this a high traffic site, nor is anyone visiting it likely to be confused about that.
Not sure what you mean by suggesting that MCE has a 2 foot interface… Media player maybe? MCE is a 10 foot interface of course.
Listening is good, frankly I want Akimbo to be successful, it’s a good, if not the, direction that things should be headed for content distribution but heavy handed DRM and lots of IP fee’s on top of a subscription it a bit much from what I can see. Will the full version really rock my world that differently? I’m a bit dubious.
I might ask if you guys are truly putting your best foot forward or not, maybe take a hard look at what is being offered in this limited preview and ask yourselves what impression do you want people to walk away with? Off the cuff it’s seem to be gear up to get milked, and I’m sure that is not what you want.
-Griffon