Joost: Fast Adopting All the Crap It Left Behind

Joost: Fast Adopting All the Crap It Left Behind It's been a few months since we first landed the chance to try out Joost, and by now we're in a fairly decent position to review the offering that either puts television to bed, or marries television to its longtime nemesis, the computer. Cool things about Joost: * The occasional brand-spankin'-new music video * The occasional good show * Throwback television (remember Ren and Stimpy? Hell yes) Now onto the meaty stuff. Less than cool things about Joost: * The ads, however short and occasional, are getting to be a drag. How many more times can we stand to look at a Ballpark Frank? * The ad logos in the lower right-hand corner are not much better and, to their misfortune, remind us a lot of the logos that appear on the right-hand corners of daytime network TV * The 'occasional good show' leaves room for improvement: I Hate My 30s was pretty funny at outset, but increasingly looks like it'll go in the same direction as That '80s Show: the bin. It's a cute idea in theory, but otherwise has a short shelf life. Can't wait for more competitive fare to start popping up, because... * Most of the rest of the shows are trash. Really, The Guinness Book of World Records? Did we really need (or want) to see a dude juggling basketballs or a man who can pull tractors with his beard? This is the kind of stuff you feed people who can't afford cable Will Joost put TV to bed? With TV already on its way out the door in terms of viewership, we probably can't attribute its death to Joost alone. But the service is certainly proof that we don't need the original king-sized tube to suffer the same angst. Will it wed TV to the monitor? Joost proves, and impressively, that democratic TV-on-yo'-comp is doable, and well. One awesome thing about the service is our newfound ability to zone out and watch a show in the middle of a coffee shop. That, coupled with Joost's On Demand-esque feature, is hard as the coffin nail that's sealing in the television monarchy. We wouldn't pin Joost a YouTube killer; it's a totally different value proposition. Kids aren't going to upload their dog chases or acting impersonations onto the Joost platform, and we don't think that's what the founders want either. It goes without saying that the service could do with a little competition to inspire improvement. Increasing adoption of broadband in more rural areas certainly can't hurt, and the iPhone presents a savory opportunity to bring the platform to a more mobile place. If it wants to be the TV of tomorrow, it needs to go mobile (these days, aiming for the desktop just isn't high enough). Overall, we'd say Joost has a couple of years to go before it sees ready mainstream adoption. Update: MarketingVox reports Joost is also too heavy for US broadband speeds. Well, hrm, that sucks.

Joost CEO Hints At Apple TV Partnership

Joost CEO Hints At Apple TV Partnership
GigaOm
Joost, the Web-based TV and video service, is in the news nearly as often as regulars Google and News Corp.'s MySpace. If it hasn't raised additional funds, the peer-to-peer TV platform has mostlikely added another major media partner or recruited a big-name exec. Today it's the latter: Joost named Mike Volpi, formerly of Cisco Systems, as CEO.

"I wanted to get on the ground floor of something unique," Volpi said. "I come from the infrastructure side, but I hate to pigeonhole myself." Volpi said he came to Joost because he likes the team, the market opportunity and the cost-effective delivery platform. Significantly, he added: "We would love to put Joost on the Apple TV platform. We know we can make it run on any operating system." You can bet the companies are already negotiating a deal-both would benefit from cross marketing.

Brought to us by the founders of Skype and KaZaa, Joost has quickly emerged as a leader in the burgeoning but crowded online video field. According to The New York Times, the company now has half-a-million subscribers, and over 100 employees-and it's still in beta. - Read the whole story...