Box Acquiring Streem (YC S12) (opens in new tab)

(blog.box.com)

98 pointsgoronbjorn11y ago34 comments

34 comments

ritikm11y ago

(Streem co-founder here) Small clerical error - we were actually YC S12, not W14 :).

MIT_Hacker11y ago

Ahhh!!! Congrats Ritik. Huge news and always nice to see good news from other Thiel Fellows :)

Really hope Streem continues to exist as an independent product or at least as a plugin on top of Box or something.

Good luck man!

natural21911y ago

Congrats man. I remember meeting you at the Meteor meetup and was thrilled with your vision (plus the balls to go with Meteor!). Good luck with your endeavors.

jsun11y ago

hey we've been looking for this EXACT solution for ages and had no idea you guys existed...

Is Streem going to continue to live on as a separate product?

avelis11y ago

As someone who signed up on the waiting list but haven't received an invite. Will I have a chance to experience your product at all?

nwenzel11y ago

Congrats Ritik! Box adding a streaming content provider opens up a new world for them. Great choice on their part.

nicklovescode11y ago

Wohoooo Congrats!

zan243411y ago

congrats Ritik! Proud of ya

cktsai11y ago

congrats guys!

windsurfer11y ago

Another "our incredible journey":

> we want to thank our beta testers for their helpful feedback, our amazing investors for believing in us from the start, and our friends and family for supporting us through the ride.

ritikm11y ago

We really wanted to make the list :)

rdl11y ago

Do you have to include the literal phrase "our incredible journey" in the acquisition or shutdown announcement to be eligible?

tnorthcutt11y ago

And to further optimize the experience and support low-bandwidth environments, Streem has developed enhanced video and media streaming technology to ensure content is accessible from the cloud as fast as it is locally.

How is this technically possible?

adamors11y ago

They've developed a new compression algorithm with a Weissman score of 5.2.

jayzalowitz11y ago

So the purchase price was above 10m? They turned that down when salesforce offered..

GarrettBeck11y ago

ritikm11y ago

We built an on-demand adaptive bitrate video transcoder that works with HLS. So it's able to fluctuate the quality and size of the video being streamed server-side before sending it down to the client. In a low-bandwidth environment, the quality decreases automatically so that the video streams without any lag. It's similar to how Netflix does their streaming.

silverbax8811y ago

How is this different than adaptive streaming?

manishsharan11y ago

If you are using FFMPEG for this, would you care to share your hack ?

1 more reply

livejamie11y ago

Did anybody else read "Box Acquiring Steam" at first?

kevin81811y ago

Yes, but then I realized that wouldn't make much sense so I forced myself to read each letter :)

rdl11y ago

Wow, congratulations. It's interesting that what seems to be a more video/etc. content focused company is going to Box -- is Box trying to beef up their consumer/content-professional market?

BorisMelnik11y ago

Smart acquisition! I didn't know about Streem, wow what a great idea. The one thing always holding me back from day to day usage of Dropbox / Box etc is being able to mount these drives in Windows. I would definitely sign up / pay for an account now.

icebraining11y ago

You've been able to mount Box drives on Windows since at least 2006. They support Webdav, which Windows XP and above can mount natively.

hatred11y ago

Can Ritik comment on some insights into how StreemFS looks like ? Does it follow a nfs client-server model where the server then makes a request to the Streem servers to get back the data and also managing look ahead buffers etc ?

tootie11y ago

That is some interesting stuff. I had to shut off Dropbox sync when it literally filled my hard drive. It sounds like Steem just caches virtual files that link to remote data. I'm curious to see it in action.

dtfiw11y ago

Congrats! I just hope the acquisition was all cash, and not for stock.

sid_xervmon11y ago

Congrats to founders and whole team. This is just awesome.

natural21911y ago

Now let's see something like this but with an open source protocol like Camlistore.

Still looking for a co-founder to tear this industry apart. Email's in profile.

sajithw11y ago

Congrats, ritik!

magic522711y ago

Great purchase, could add a lot of value to their consumer offering.

cstigler11y ago

Wooooooo Streem!

fuire811y ago

no wonder why they had to pull IPO.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

34 comments

ritikm11y ago

(Streem co-founder here) Small clerical error - we were actually YC S12, not W14 :).

MIT_Hacker11y ago

Ahhh!!! Congrats Ritik. Huge news and always nice to see good news from other Thiel Fellows :)

Really hope Streem continues to exist as an independent product or at least as a plugin on top of Box or something.

Good luck man!

natural21911y ago

Congrats man. I remember meeting you at the Meteor meetup and was thrilled with your vision (plus the balls to go with Meteor!). Good luck with your endeavors.

jsun11y ago

hey we've been looking for this EXACT solution for ages and had no idea you guys existed...

Is Streem going to continue to live on as a separate product?

avelis11y ago

As someone who signed up on the waiting list but haven't received an invite. Will I have a chance to experience your product at all?

nwenzel11y ago

Congrats Ritik! Box adding a streaming content provider opens up a new world for them. Great choice on their part.

nicklovescode11y ago

Wohoooo Congrats!

zan243411y ago

congrats Ritik! Proud of ya

cktsai11y ago

congrats guys!

windsurfer11y ago

Another "our incredible journey":

> we want to thank our beta testers for their helpful feedback, our amazing investors for believing in us from the start, and our friends and family for supporting us through the ride.

ritikm11y ago

We really wanted to make the list :)

rdl11y ago

Do you have to include the literal phrase "our incredible journey" in the acquisition or shutdown announcement to be eligible?

tnorthcutt11y ago

How is this technically possible?

adamors11y ago

They've developed a new compression algorithm with a Weissman score of 5.2.

jayzalowitz11y ago

So the purchase price was above 10m? They turned that down when salesforce offered..

GarrettBeck11y ago

ritikm11y ago

silverbax8811y ago

How is this different than adaptive streaming?

manishsharan11y ago

If you are using FFMPEG for this, would you care to share your hack ?

1 more reply

livejamie11y ago

Did anybody else read "Box Acquiring Steam" at first?

kevin81811y ago

Yes, but then I realized that wouldn't make much sense so I forced myself to read each letter :)

rdl11y ago

Wow, congratulations. It's interesting that what seems to be a more video/etc. content focused company is going to Box -- is Box trying to beef up their consumer/content-professional market?

BorisMelnik11y ago

icebraining11y ago

You've been able to mount Box drives on Windows since at least 2006. They support Webdav, which Windows XP and above can mount natively.

hatred11y ago

tootie11y ago

dtfiw11y ago

Congrats! I just hope the acquisition was all cash, and not for stock.

sid_xervmon11y ago

Congrats to founders and whole team. This is just awesome.

natural21911y ago

Now let's see something like this but with an open source protocol like Camlistore.

Still looking for a co-founder to tear this industry apart. Email's in profile.