Joost appears to be scaling back its game plan a bit. The Sunday Times reports that the online video platform will focus entirely on distributing content in the US, where it has the largest audience. Up until now, Joost has provided videos globally, although the content you were able to watch was determined by your country of residence.
The company was founded by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the founders of Skype. The goal was to give users a standalone application for viewing high quality videos over a peer to peer network, rather than spending all day squinting at YouTube style videos embedded in web pages. But while Joost has managed to sign a few major content partners like CBS and Viacom, you can generally find more up to date content from Hulu or the BBC iPlayer.
Joost is also hardly the only name in the game these days. The company faces competition (if you can call it that) from other online video services including Babelgum, Vuze, VeohTV, and Miro. But there's still one major question that needs to be answered: Does anybody actually use any of these services on a regular basis to watch videos, or are they the sort of programs you download once to check out and then maybe remember to launch every few weeks to see if there's anything new?
Do you actually care if Joost shuts down in the UK and other markets? Would it matter to you if they closed up shop in the US too? Let us know in the comments.
Apparently live video streaming isn't the only new feature coming from internet video Joost. Company CEO Mike Volpi tells Portfolio Magazine that the company is also working on a browser-based version of their software.
Right now in order to watch Joost content you need to download and install a standalone application which connects to Joost's peer to peer network. And while Joost has gotten an awful lot of attention for changing the way we think about online video over the last few years, it turns out that a relatively small number of people have actually bothered to install the Joost client, while hundreds of millions of users regularly watch videos in their web browsers.
It's not exactly clear that Joost offers much to pull people away from popular sites like YouTube, Hulu, and DailyMotion. Sure, Joost has full length movies and TV episodes, but so does Hulu, and to be honest, Hulu has far more popular content than Joost.
While Joost competitor Babelgum is busy looking for independent films to showcase, Joost is still looking for ways to get people excited about watching mainstream television programs over the internet without the help of a web browser.
While Joost has historically offered a video on demand type service, allowing users to watch old episodes of Star Trek or slightly newer episodes of Robot Chicken at their own leisure, there are some TV programs people prefer to watch live, like Sports. So starting today, Joost plans to partner with CBS to provide a live stream of the NCAA March Madness tournament.
The move is more of an experiment than a business model shift. We don't expect Joost to give up on video on demand anytime soon. But if the service can handle live video streaming, we might see other live events streamed in the future. Of course, most folks will find it's a lot easier just to turn on the TV if they want to catch a basketball game, but if you're stuck at work late one night and there's no TV in sight, it's nice to know that procrastination is still an option.
Once upon a time peer to peer video application Babelgum had its sights set firmly on Joost. Both applications allow users to watch internet video without a web browser and with an attractive full screen interface. But while Joost has been steadily picking up major studio and network content partners, Babelgum has focused largely on independent film.
And it turns out that may have been a smart move, as Joost hasn't really lived up to its hype over the past year, and major content producers are turning to other services like Hulu to distribute their material.
Now Babelgum is going all out on the indie film front, and creating a $15 million fund to invest in independent shorts. Any videos funded by Babelgum will be distributed solely through the online video application, although Babelgum may consider selling DVDs or pursuing TV distribution deals.
If you're the sort of person who likes to watch TV with closed captioning on, you may have noticed that most internet video has one thing missing: subtitles. Whether you're watching YouTube, Hulu, or Joost, odds are the only time you'll see subtitles are when someone uploads a foreign language video and feels like taking the time to add English subtitles (or vice versa). In other words, there's no option to turn subtitles on and off. They're either there or they're not.
SubJoost is a community driven Joost plugin that lets you turn on and create subtitles for any video served up by Joost. Just install the widget and select your language of choice. If subtitles are available in your language, they'll show up on selected videos.
The problem is right now there are almost no videos with subtitles available. While there's a list of subtitled videos on the SubJoost web page, we found that very few of these movies and TV shows actually have more than a handful of captions. But since this is a community driven project, there's an easy fix for that problem. Anyone can sign up for a SubJoost account and start creating their own subtitles. So get crackin already, will you?
The open source, cross-platform video platform, Miro, recently released version 1.1. The new update offers two main improvements. First, Miro has significantly improved BitTorrent performance by giving the user more control and settings for BitTorrent downloads. Miro's support of BitTorrent has always set itself apart from other media players with it's BitTorrent support and we're glad to see them enhancing this important feature.
Second, Miro 1.1 has made it easier to find the search results you're looking for by instituting a combined search across all 5 of their search engines. Users who want to only search the engines one at a time can still do so by choosing the engines they're most interested in seeing results from.
If you're not a user of Miro yet, we encourage you to take a look its way. Miro is a media viewing software package that allows you to view almost any video file format, search for and view YouTube videos, and access video podcasts via BitTorrent. Additionally, Miro is an open source video platform that lacks any DRM and allows unrestricted viewing of their materials. Also, they Miro takes pride in it's selection of HD content.
Netflix, the popular DVD-by-mail rental service, is teaming up with hardware manufactures to bring movies straight to your living room, bypassing the DVD by mail part of their business. In an obvious move to be competitive against Blockbuster and online services such as Joost and Zulu, Netflix is making another wave in the digital download arena.
The New York Times reports that Netflix has teamed up with LG to deliver movies and other high-def content straight to your TV. Netflix would like to have numerous relationships with many hardware manufacturers to make their service available to as many people as possible.
Netflix users have had the ability to watch movies online, but it requires web access and a PC. We congratulate Netflix for trying to make their service possible directly to our shiny HDTVs.
Miro is positioning itself as an alternative to Joost, but we're not sure the comparison is apt. Joost lets you watch professionally produced content in a custom-built streaming video player that brings a TV-like experience to your computer. Miro lets you download and watch videos that you could have gotten from other places -- but Miro makes finding video from thousands of sources all kinds of easy.
Miro is also open-source, cross-platform (with Mac, Linux, and Windows versions available), and 100% DRM-free. And while the fact that you can't watch streaming video might seem like a disadvantage, Miro dos a pretty good job of downloading videos that weren't really meant for saving to your computer. In other words, it's a handy application to have around if you want to download "web-only" videos from sites like YouTube.
Meebo, the web-based instant messaging service, has announced that they will be powering Channel Chat across Joost's internet video platform.
Joost provides over 15000 shows from 250 Channels. Meebo will allow anyone watching a show or channel to chat with other viewers, or to chat with people with the same viewing tastes.
At some point we're going to stop calling all of these internet TV platforms "IPTV" and just start calling them TV. Of course, one of the main differences between live TV and Joost is that Joost isn't well... live. But it looks like that could change early next year.
PaidContent:UK reports that Joost will start offering live streaming television programs to US customers during the first quarter of 2008. While most of the content available through the peer-to-peer software right now is on-demand, Joost officials say the platform can also transmit streams at the same time as they are broadcast on television. Once the program is finished, users will be able to watch an on-demand version.
If Joost can pull this off, and if the company can sign enough content partnerships with networks and sports associations like MLB, Joost could eventually provide the ability to watch TV on any computer without first installing a TV tuner. Better yet, since you're not limited to local broadcasts, you'll be able to watch television programs from around the world.
On the other hand, something tells us most networks are still going to want you to watch their programming live on television or via their own websites where they have more control over the advertising.
Defying all conventional logic, Joost has upgraded its internet TV client to version 1.0 -- and it's still in beta. That means you can only download Joost 1.0 if you're a current beta tester, or if you know someone kind enough to send you an invitation.
There are a few new features and performance tweaks in Joost 1.0 beta, including a modified user interface, larger icons, and the ability to customize your interface by dragging and dropping channel thumbnails.
Joost 1.0 is also supposed to work better on slow networks and will try to restart stalled video streams. Probably the best news is that the developers have finally included an updater service, meaning you won't need to download an installer file every time an update is released. But honestly, the latest version of Joost still appears a bit buggy to wear a 1.0 label. At the very least, this should be considered Joost 1.0 RC1.
The Joost team also reports that you'll need to install and run Joost 1.0 as an administrator if you're running Windows Vista, which is all well and good, but we were unable to get the program to work properly on our Vista system. It starts up just fine, and will resume the last video you were watching. But when you try to pull up a channel menu in order to switch videos, nothing happens.
Update: It looks like Joost has added a download link to their front page, meaning the public beta has begun. No more invitations needed. Also, a few days into the beta, we noticed that our difficulty pulling up the channel guide has disappeared. Perhaps it was a network congestion issue, but the beta seems to be working well now. And finally, Joost has added links to featured content to their web page. Want to watch La Femme Nikita episodes? Just click the "play now" button to launch Joost and the show will begin to play.
Besides pumpkin pie and homecoming, the MLB playoffs are one of the best things about autumn. Indeed, when your home team was picked by Vegas to win the division at the outset of the season and they actually do it, the Major League playoffs are even sweeter than pumpkin pie. Enter the Cleveland Indians.
Of course, if you're trying to save money like some Clevelanders we know, you may not want to pay the outrageous sum of money the cable company demands as compensation for television programming--no matter how badly you want to see the Tribe wipe out the Yankees in two weeks. And don't kid us--we know you don't have one of those gnarly gigantic VHF antennas on your roof. For a real baseball fan, this a true dilemma.
Thankfully, it appears that, for those of us with credentials on the Joost video service, not even a lack of TV service will stop us from watching the MLB playoffs. According to Mashable, Joost just inked a deal with MLB to make all of the games, from the division series to the World Series available on demand. Now the games won't be broadcast live as they happen (you'll still need to pay somebody for that), but at least you'll be able to review that bonecrushing homerun Victor Martinez hits to complete the sweep of the Yankees.
Now for the catch--unless you live outside the U.S. and Japan, Joost won't show you the games. Minor details, right? According to Newteevee.com, MLB is so protective of their broadcasts that even replays to a limited number of baseball fans on a P2P service that's still in beta seem to be just too risky. Maybe it's time to re-order that cable TV after all... just for playoff season.
Get ready for the newest widget platform on the market, Joost. They have just rolled out their API and opened things up for developers to make masterpieces that integrate with the P2P TV client application.
The launch of Joost's latest version 0.12.0 is a little overshadowed by the API introduction, which is the icing on Joost's cake. The somewhat hush hush announcement in the product forums of their website will open up the application to a whole new realm of developers who will go beyond what Joost has already done with their current RSS, chat, and clock widgets.
The official Joost API website is currently password protected.
Sure, the whole idea behind internet television platform Joost is that there's a better way to watch internet video than using a web browser. But developer Paul Yanez tells NewTeeVee he was frustrated that every time Joost issued a new beta release he had to download a new application. So he built a Flash-based Joost clone that runs inside of a web browser. He can push out any updates he likes and you'll never have to download a thing. It also happens to work on any platform, including Windows, Linux, and Mac.
Of course, he doesn't have permission from Joost to use their graphics. Nor does he have access to Joo'st video content. But he's done a pretty good job of replicating the Joost interface using web video from sites like YouTube, MySpace, and iFilm.
The interface isn't perfect. For example you can't use your keyboard to navigate the menus, you'll need a mouse. Given that an independent developer was able to put this together in less than a month, it'd be nice to see Joost come out with something similar. Because while the idea of a standalone full screen video player is nice, the truth is people do spend a lot of time sitting in front of a computer with a web browser open. It'd be nice to give them a better way to slack off at the office.
Of course, having 1 million registered users doesn't mean there are that many people using the P2P video application on a daily basis. Shortly after the company launched its unlimited invitation phase, Joost's servers were hammered by increased traffic, a problem that has since been fixed.
But it'll be interesting to see what happens when the service launches publicly. Zennström says that could happen by the end of the year.
