Creating a Virtual Viewing Party
By all accounts, Ali Ahmed is an ambitious man, further, the type of man to whom the word ambitious does credit. Ahmed gets things done, thinks big picture and stands by his ideas. It is good then, for those interested in the success of Lutebox, the entertainment service Ahmed founded, that he remains the driving force behind the service, because Lutebox is among the more ambitious (certainly the more broad) ideas you are likely to encounter. Whether its scope keeps Lutebox from reaching its potential or sets it firmly above competing entertainment services remains to be seen, however it is clear that Lutebox lacks in neither ambition nor leadership.
The idea behind Lutebox is to create a service which makes available to users a variety of mainstream content (e.g. movies, TV shows, sports, music videos) while building a social community around that content. The community allows users to keep tabs on the viewing patterns of their network and to schedule group screenings wherein they can watch content simultaneously with friends while on a group video conference. The idea sounds great — premium content plus the means to enjoy it with your friends — but presents a few challenges when it comes to execution.
For one, building any social network from scratch is difficult, and Ahmed seems set against incorporating external social networks. Another challenge involves obtaining the wide range of rights required for the many categories of content promised. Finally, there is the technical challenge of making sure the videoconferences don’t interfere with the content screening; Lutebox plans to offer six-way video conferencing while in your scheduled group viewing which can put a strain on most computers.
Here is where the ambitious nature of Lutebox is most apparent. A very small segment of the population has the processor power available to them to stream HD content while maintaining a video conference, let alone eight, but when the technology catches up, or Lutebox finds a way to gracefully address the problem, this kind of simultaneous viewing is precisely the entertainment experience users will demand. And if anybody can find a way to get it to them, it’s probably Ali Ahmed.
You can register for an early alpha invite to Lutebox here.
