Community Spotlight:

TriXie Interviews XB Stream founder PG4

I was waiting for my luggage at McCarran airport in Las Vegas, and I decided to check the traffic on www.trixieblog.com. I was astounded to discover I'd had 50,000 page views that day, and it was only 9:00 A.M.! What in the world was going on?

I made a post asking if anyone else with Live Spaces had noticed that their stats were messed up. A couple of people suggested it might be XB Stream, a new program that downloads podcasts and blog posts to your Xbox 360™ via Windows Media Connect. Sure enough PG4 showed up on trixieblog and left the following comment:

Trixieblog on Xbox 360!

"Hello TriXie, I'm the author behind XB Stream. The program automatically downloads blogs and converts them into images you can view on your Xbox 360. It also downloads audio podcasts. I included your blog as one of the defaults that comes with the program so those definitely are real hits to your website. If you want me to remove the feed TriXie please let me know and I'll remove it from XB Stream. I should have asked your permission first but it's very hard getting a hold of Xbox® community leaders and I was simply just trying to give you a little more exposure. No harm was intended."

Well needless to say I didn't ask PG4 to remove it … I love the traffic (my boss Highbury Gunner calls me a 'click whore') and consider it an honor to be a default!

The XB Stream menu.

TriXie: Where do you live?

PG4: I live in Norman, Oklahoma—home of the OU Sooners!

TriXie: What do you do for a living?

PG4: I make a living as a self-employed software developer working with small businesses. Typically database work and occasionally working on larger Internet/website projects. However I was contacted by EA and Ubisoft recently due to XB Stream, and if things work out I may work at one of those wonderful companies!

TriXie: How long have you been on Xbox Live®?

PG4: I've been on Xbox Live since the very beginning. In fact, I was originally one of the first few beta testers for Xbox Live and really enjoyed that experience. Xbox Live has really revolutionized the way console games are played and how games can be expanded upon with download content.

TriXie: Did you do XB Stream all by yourself, or did you have some help?

PG4: I am the sole developer behind XB Stream. The project was top secret, as I didn't want other people to know about it until it was very close to being finished. There were a very select number of people that did help beta test the software within the last two weeks before the project went public, and a thank you goes out to them!

TriXie: How did you get the idea for XB Stream?

PG4: The XB Stream project initially came to fruition because I was getting frustrated checking my computer for Xbox 360 news during E3. I also wanted a way to consolidate all of the Xbox community websites into one area, providing gamers instant information directly from their Xbox 360s.

I knew it was possible to connect a computer to the Xbox 360 and send pictures/sounds but it was not possible to send text. However, Microsoft provided a great mechanism to pull content over from the computer, so it was simply a process of creating dynamic content and placing that information into a format the Xbox 360 could read by converting text into images. After a few test runs with grabbing screenshots of text and saving that information into images, then moving those images into a shared folder, I knew the project would definitely work but would require a lot of effort.

TriXie: How long did it take to build?

Trixie asks "What the hell is going on?"

PG4: The first version that I created took a little under two days to make, but it was a diamond in the rough. There was no interface to add in new feeds or edit feeds, there was no advanced interface at all in fact, just a simple button on a blank form that I would press and it would periodically check the feeds I hard coded into the program. I later added in podcast/blogcast capability once the basic functionality of the software had become solid.

After building an XML parser and an interface for the program, I knew the project was becoming pretty robust and had the capability to be used on other computers without significant bugs/problems. So I decided that I could spend another week or so getting the program into a state that I could release it to the public. Boy, was I wrong. It took a little over two months to fully finish the program and have software which lived up to the expectations that I require. Around that time I notified a few people I knew and let them beta test XB Stream for several weeks before public release.

TriXie: Tell us a little about getting Nelson'd and the aftermath.

PG4: I decided to publicly release the software around September 14 and sent Major Nelson and a ton of other websites an email notifying them of the software. I expected not many websites would cover the news initially and thought at most a dozen, two dozen people would use the software. Was I ever wrong. Within 24 hours the website was mentioned right on the front page of Major Nelson's website and the download avalanche started. Within 24 hours the program had been downloaded over 20,000 times, was mentioned on Major Nelson, Kotaku, Xboxic, and a ton of Xbox and gaming websites.

TriXie: How many people have downloaded it now?

PG4: I estimate that the current user base of XB Stream is approximately 30,000 users with ~100-200 people per day adding onto those numbers.

XB Stream gets Nelson'd.

TriXie: That's very impressive! What has the reaction been from the community?

PG4: The reaction to XB Stream by the gaming community has been very positive, with one exception. XB Stream comes included with several dozen blogs and podcast/blogcast site feeds preloaded into the software. The initial version of the software had a major bug in it which would download a website's entire back catalog of podcasts/blogcasts. That and the combination of thousands of simultaneous users caused those websites to slow to a crawl and in some cases completely shut down.

GamerAndy and the guys at XBL Radio were extremely affected by this and I've since released a patch for the software which fixes that issue and have also worked with those websites to provide a mechanism to block the first version of the software from downloading audio. But on the positive side of things, I've been asked to do many interviews for gaming websites.

I've received tons of positive feedback emails, people continually contact me asking that their podcasts and blogs be added into the software, and finally being contacted by EA and Ubisoft regarding the software and being offered a job with them was really fantastic!

TriXie: What's your next project?

PG4: I've got a few ideas for my next project, for instance I'm deciding if I should create an email reader or work on other Xbox related projects. I'll definitely continue to develop XB Stream in my free time and am in the process now of adding in more features. Also, I was recently contacted by the guys at Microsoft's Xbox Community Developer Program asking if I'd like to join the XDCP. I definitely can see several projects that I could make using the gamertag data that xbox.com provides, so be on the lookout. :)

TriXie: Thanks PG4, and congratulations on a truly cool and innovative addition!