My first exposure to Boxee was a few weeks ago as I read the news from CES 2010. Boxee is media center software that runs on a variety of operating systems and touts itself as “the best way to enjoy entertainment from the Internet and computer on your TV.”

In its support forum knowledge base under the question “What is Boxee?” you can read the following:

Boxee is a social media center. With Boxee you can play videos, music and pictures from your computer, local network, and the Internet. You can also share with your friends what albums you’re listening to, what movies and TV shows you’re watching, send recommendations and more.

One of the most-talked about devices at CES 2010 was the Boxee Box, a hardware device running the Boxee software that promises “plug and enjoy” connectivity to online entertainment sources such as YouTube, Pandora, Netflix, flickr, Facebook photos, TED Talks, and many more.  Plus you can access pictures, video, and music from your home network.  The Boxee Box has a striking design and a remote that features a keyboard on the back:

The great part for developers is that you can create and deploy your own Boxee applications using xml & Python.

Here is a 6 minute video that walks you through the process of creating and testing your first Boxee application:

The files used in the video can be downloaded from here:

Source Code