Joost | Bringing Television to the Web
Tim March 1st, 2007
Today’s demo probably needs no introduction if you’ve been paying attention to the major tech blogs and social sites. Joost, formerly code-named The Venice Project, is the much-famed startup of Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (founders of Skype and Kazaa) which aims to bring television content to the web via streaming and p2p technology. Earlier in February they closed a deal with Viacom giving them access to many major content providers like MTV and VH1.
All of this sounds very promising but as the owner of a less than spectacular broadband connection I’m all too familiar with the amount of bandwidth needed to make streaming television and movies look seamless to the enduser. Plus, as all the hype builds around the secrecy of this project I’ve become more skeptical that perhaps in this case the magic might be in the mystery of the product. I recently managed to get my hand on a beta token and got permission to demo the product here so today we’ll be giving it a run for its money and see if Joost lives up to the hype.
1. Our trek to Joostonia begins at the lowly hills of the homepage where our brave hero DemoMarks will attempt to gain access to the prized holy grail of the Joost Lord. As you can see with Joost being in private beta they are holding most of their cards real close and only offer a link to a few screenshots, some frequently asked questions, and the chance to sign up to test Joost or receive their newsletter.
2. The signup to beta test Joost is simple but getting in is not. The waiting list is long and at this point you’re better off gaining an invitation token to get in to the site instead of trying to get one from Joost directly.
3. Luckily for me I managed to get ahold of a token provided by CenterNetworks so I head on over to the login page and enter my details.
4. The Joost website is basically serving the purpose of a general hub for all news and activity related to the program for testers. We’ve got a blog with all the latest release announcements as well as information on Downloading, Sharing, and a Forum. Of course what we’re most interested in is downloading and trying out the program so I click to download.
5. Joost recently released a Mac version of their software so I’m given the option of downloading either and since I’m on at Mac at the moment I’ve decided that will be my platform of choice.
6. Setup is typical for Mac applications and doesn’t take long at all. Once I’ve unpacked and installed the program I go ahead and add a beautiful little icon to my dock.
7. After watching a short introduction video that basically advertised what’s being shown recently at Joost I start seeing some content, namely Green Day. The interface is full screen by default making the video a tad choppy. I will note that I’m currently at work on a T3 dedicated line, not my crappy “broadband” DSL at home. The interface menu only shows up when the mouse is moved across the screen and disappears when idle.
8. I clicked the “My Channels” button to see what that had to offer and I get a few options. Because Joost is still in beta there’s not a ton of content to offer but it’s a decent offering and nothing at all like the YouTube fare.
9. I’ve gone into the “What’s Popular” channel to see what’s kickin at Joost. All of these listings are only a few minutes a piece so you’re basically just getting snippets of entertainment at this point. One thing that changes your view of television when using this app is that, much like with a Tivo, you are in control of what you get to watch. You have the ability to restart a program, pause it, etc. That’s one of the key features that sets this apart from anything else.
10. After making my selection the video loads and begins. Loading for me is taking about 6-7 seconds per video, sometimes a bit longer. This is not horrible considering the type of loading times I’ve experienced in the past with streaming sites, but I’d be interested to see how it does on a home connection.
11. Another wild features is that Joost has built widgets into the interface. You remember the button to the right, when you click it you get a screen showing the default chat widget along with a notice and the option to add more. The chat functionality is pretty interesting, offering users the ability to talk about what’s being showed on a specific channel. I could see this having the quality of AOL chatrooms or Metafilter depending on whether you’re on MTV or the History Channel, but the concept is definitely intriguing. When I had this up there were 2-3 people in the room (no names are displayed except when messaging) and no one was talking.
12. Clicking the Add Widget button gives me a few other default options for adding in widgets to the screen. I assume developers will be able to create any widget ala Dashboard/Yahoo/Windows Sidebar et. al. Another thing you’ll notice here and with other menus is that the interface is designed to repeat options continually. While this works well for say 60 channels where you start over again at channel 1, in menus like this it’s confusing because what looks like a large list of widgets is only really a small handful.
13. After clicking a widget it is added to the screen and I can drag it around, placing it where I wish. Widgets make for interesting interaction but I doubt I’d use them in real life rather than actually just watching programming.
Right now there are still a lot of things being ironed out at Joost which is very typically with a full fledged beta and I expect much more programming, widgets, and features will be added in the coming months as the service gets more use. After announcing at the end of last year they’ve already come a long way. Does it live up to the hype? For me it hasn’t yet. The resolution made watching the programming somewhat unattractive compared to downloading movies and television shows in iTunes. However the interface is slick and with deals being made for major television programming Joost has a big opportunity to go big with this application. It is currently free and ad-supported and there have been no mentions of any pricing in the future (it will likely stay ad-supported and free of charge).
Also if you’ve gone through this whole review and now you’re itching to get your hands on the program, I happen to have 2 invites and I’m willing to share the love. Simply review any of our demos and the first 2 will get token invites to take Joost for a whirl.
