Sling Media: On The Move

So where exactly is Sling headed? I know they’re moving into new offices shortly, but in the broader sense something is up over at Sling Media.

We currently know them as the company that pioneered “place shifting” with the original Slingbox (and newer models) designed to broadcast your personal television feed over the Internet to a variety of computer (PC, Mac) and phone (Microsoft, Symbian) platforms anywhere in the world.

But maybe they want to be something more…

First, we discover they’ve hidden an IR receiver into the new Slingbox Pro. What we don’t know is why. Now I have a pretty good relationship with the Sling folks, so when they don’t respond to my questions I have to assume there’s something in the works.

Which is why the new Sling TV promo on their site is intriguing. My first thought was that this might refer to a service to provide online demos to potential customers. But is that all, could there be more?

Of course, by themselves these could be minor developments… But hiring two former MTV executives to lead up a new Sling Media Entertainment Group based in New York City really got my attention:

The Sling Media Entertainment Group was formed to define and create even richer and more engaging experiences for Slingbox customers as well as their family and friends. This team will deliver entirely new applications and services enabled by the Slingbox’s marriage of familiar TV programming and richly interactive web-connected devices. The Sling Media Entertainment Group is also chartered with managing Sling Media’s existing and future collaborative efforts with content creators, distributors and advertisers.

MTV execs? “Interactive web-connected devices?” “Content creators?” Hmmm… Will Sling license and distribute media? What’s this about my “family and friends?” Should I read anything into “web-connected” versus “Internet-connected?” Why might the Slingbox need an IR receiver and remote? Very, very interesting. And exciting!