Five million users are enjoying Orb Networks services. Nice! I suspect quite a few of those will be 3UK X-Series users (Orb is one of the X-Series services).
An overview in case you haven’t caught them recently:
Orb lets users stream — or share with their friends — music, videos, webcams, and any web content, from their PC to other internet-connected devices. Usage patterns indicate that many Orbers use the media center application and service to enjoy their TV, movies and other videos stored on their PCs or on the internet, using game consoles such as the Nintendo Wii, Sony PLAYSTATION 3, and Microsoft Xbox 360.
Another popular use of Orb is to stream music from a home music collection (including purchased downloads from Rhapsody, Napster, Amazon MP3, and eMusic) to a mobile phone. With Orb, there is no need for sync-ing or worry about storage constraints on the phone. Orb works with many of today’s popular handsets including models from Apple, Motorola, Nokia, Palm, LG and many more.
Joe Costello, Orb Chief Executive is, understandably, bullish:
“The public has spoken — content is King. And people want to enjoy their digital content — including locally stored music, photos, and videos, as well as webcams and content from the internet — on ANY device, not just the PC where they have traditionally viewed it,” said Joe. “No one wants to be tethered to their computer in order to enjoy their media. They want all that media, available to them on any screen, at any time.”
Here, here!
We’ll need to add Orb to our Application of the Week group test. Check it out — it’s a free download.
[…] With Orb running up to 5 million users, I wanted to give you an idea of why so many are starting to realize the value in media being served from the cloud, such as Orb does, versus locally stored data. I’ve been an Orb, er, member for a long time, but never quite got it to work. The problem was I was attempting to use AT&T’s EDGE network, which simply isn’t suitable for streaming video content. However, when I got my Nokia N95-3, which supports AT&T’s 3G HSDPA network, I decided to give it another go, and I’m completely floored. […]
Orb could be so many good things but isn’t.
I’m one of those X-Series users and found that being able to use it on my N73 was more of a gimmick rather than anything else. Having to use the phone’s browser to access content rather than have a standalone purpose-built app seems to be the biggest mistake. It’s an awful interface that is so painfully convoluted that it becomes a slow chore trying to navigate your media. Once you got there the audio, video and picture quality is terrible and far short of what is possible.
All of that only after you’ve managed to get the Orb client working on your PC to start with (I had nothing but problems – were they Orb’s fault, Windows or whatever? Who knows, from a consumer’s PoV it doesn’t matter!)
Ant UK’s last blog post..Eee PC advert in French Cosmo: I’ve got a girl’s laptop!
Orb Networks has crash landed! I believe they are down to less than 10 people! Not sure how they are still around!
Orb Networks has crash landed! I believe they are down to less than 10 people! Not sure how they are still around!
Orb Networks has crash landed! I believe they are down to less than 10 people! Not sure how they are still around!