Getting Ready for the Future

Of course, there's another reason why Sling is making the shift to Accounts over the traditional Finder ID, and that's growth. The Sling experience is moving beyond the Slingbox and into new frontiers. As Sling Media expands the definition of what it means to be a Slinger, having a common ID across all these different devices and services makes a whole lot of sense.

Take the SlingCatcher for example. Without the Sling Account, you'd need to manually input the SingFinder ID of every Slingbox you own using the standard 10-digit keypad on the remote control. That does NOT sound like fun. Accounts allow you to get going quickly by entering only your e-mail address and password, which gives you access to all your Slingboxes.

Another area of growth that heavily relies on Sling Accounts is the upcoming Sling.com website and video portal. Here, logging in to your Sling Account lets you do all kinds of things, including fire up a web-version of SlingPlayer and watch your live TV from anywhere. The ability to load SlingPlayer 1.x onto a flash drive and run it on a remote PC was convenient, but this is even better.

"Sling Accounts is really part of a much bigger picture than just connecting to Slingboxes from SlingPlayer 2.0," said MegaZone. "It is the foundation for a lot of other work we're doing, some which will be obvious to users as it rolls out, some which will be on the back end and not as visible. But, Sling Accounts will become increasingly vital to our products and services, and it is really centered around improving our offerings to the users and our ability to provide quality support."

Think about all the other possibilities that Accounts offer between Sling devices. I'm only brainstorming here (really, these are my UNCONFIRMED ideas for how accounts could be used), but if Clip+Sling becomes real, how about the ability to easily find and stream the clips you created directly to your SlingCatcher... or even SlingPlayer on your mobile phone? How about some social networking features like a friends list and being able to see your friends clips, or maybe what clips or shows they are watching through Sling.com right now? Again, none of that is confirmed, but I guarantee it's not possible without accounts. 

The Top 3 Sling Account Myths

As a long time Slinger, I'm pretty passionate about the changes, for the better or worse, Sling Media makes to my Sling experience. In the case of Sling Accounts, I personally believe it is a major improvement. Of course, there are those out there who have been vocal about some concerns or apprehensions surrounding Sling Accounts. Rather than beat around the bush, I thought I'd take the community's concerns straight to Sling Media, Adam and Jamie style, to see if they could shed some light on what's true and what isn't for the top three Sling Account myths:

Myth #1: "Now that Sling Accounts is out, is Sling Media monitoring what I watch on TV and selling that data to third parties?"

Even reading this question will send shivers up your spine. It may not be as big a conspiracy as Area 51 or Watergate, but if you're paranoid about big-brother looking over your shoulder, it would be a major reason not to use a Slingbox.

First of all, there are significant technical limitations to how Sling Media would even be capable of doing this. They can't, for example, monitor your video streams in real time. Once the connection to a Slingbox is made, it goes direct between the source and client. Sling does not intercept your video stream and pump it through their servers; it would be extremely expensive.

So what, hypothetically, could they do? The conspiracy prone believe that when using the internal tuner, the channel and time gets reported back to a server at Sling Media. This obviously wouldn't be useful for external sources, but if you were to buy into the conspiracy, you'd believe that the new Guide tracks what channels you click and when, then combine it with your zip code and service provider to narrow it down to a specific program. Again, all this is according to the tin-foil hat brigade.

"False," says MegaZone from Sling Media. "And, you could verify that yourself by setting up a packet sniffer and watching what happens while you stream. Beyond any call to our servers to make the initial connection, you shouldn't see any outbound activity to us. Besides, we're such a small percentage of the live TV viewership; the data wouldn't be valuable or useful for ratings analysis anyway."

Sling Media's current privacy policy backs up his claim. In order to collect that kind of data, Sling Media would have to disclose it. Give it a read through, and while they can monitor the frequency in which you use Sling products, there is nothing there giving permission to collect data regarding your viewing habits. A change to the privacy policy in the future could open the doors to big-brother style tracking, but for now, it's not in the cards.

For those who still "want to believe," MegaZone has a little advice. "There are dozens of places to get a disposable, non-personal e-mail address. Use one of those to create your Account if you object to revealing personal information."  

Myth Status: Busted 

Myth #2: "Is the move to Sling Accounts a sign that using a Slingbox is going to become a fee based service?"

"There's no ulterior motive; no plans to start charging fees or anything like that." That's the short of it from MegaZone, and I believe him. Charging a fee for users to access their Slingboxes would be silly, not to mention a quick way to rise to the top of everyone's hate list.

That being said, I do see some opportunities for paid services from Sling Media in the future. In regards to the Sling.com website, (again, my own brain coming up with ideas here) perhaps they could offer pay-per-view or a monthly service for certain premium video content and movies, similar to Netflix. If I could stream new Hollywood blockbusters to my SlingCatcher, it would be an unobtrusive paid service that really wouldn't be possible without Sling Accounts.

Myth Status: Busted

Myth #3: "What if Sling Media goes out of business? How will I still use my Slingbox?"

With EchoStar's piggy bank behind them, I seriously doubt this is going to happen. However, it is still a valid question, and I do understand everyone's concern. It's a rough economic time, and we're seeing a bunch of "it'll never happen" type of things come to fruition. As a Slinger who wants to use his Slingbox forever, I firmly believe Sling Media should bring back a manual way of connecting to a Slingbox from SlingPlayer clients and the SlingCatcher.

I'm not alone on this position. Even MegaZone is on board with getting a manual connection option back into the mix. 

"Personally, I agree that SlingPlayer should be usable without logging in. Some people are paranoid about privacy and just don't like having accounts. I focus more on availability - being able to connect even if something happens to our servers. So, I'd like to see a local copy of the data that works as a fallback if SlingPlayer can't login to the server; to maintain functionality if anything were to happen."

The other thing that's being forgotten here is that Sling Media, as an entity, has value. If in the event EchoStar dissolved, you'd most likely see a buyer swoop in and pick up Sling Media before it would ever go "out of business." 

"Look at ReplayTV," says MegaZone. "They've gone bankrupt twice, once as ReplayTV and once as SonicBlue, and changed owners a couple times. Yet, users still receive service."

I find it funny he used replayTV as an example. I still have an old Panasonic Showstopper (replayTV in Panasonic trim from 1998) that's still kickin'.

The main reason for bringing back a manual connection option really doesn't have anything to do with the company going under. Since the release of Sling Accounts, it's been discovered that in certain cases, like behind a very strict firewall, some users have been unable to connect to their accounts, and therefore, to their Slingbox. This is something they probably didn't forsee, and may address in a future SlingPlayer revision.

Myth Status: Plausible, though extremely unlikely

Conclusion

At this time, SlingPlayer for Windows 2.0 and SlingPlayer for TV (the SlingPlayer client built into the SlingCatcher) are the clients currently using Sling Accounts, plus Sling Media's support system. The true value behind this change won't be fully obvious until other clients are released or updated with Sling Account sign-in, and Sling.com is unveiled to the public. Expect it to find its way into newer mobile clients (Blackberry should be first with iPhone following) and into major updates for existing clients.

Once the true vision for Sling Accounts is realized, and you begin to get the idea that it really does simplify and enhance the Slingbox experience, no doubt you'll begin to wonder how you managed your Slingbox without it.

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