Technologizer » Joost

Joost Starts to Fade Away

Harry McCracken — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:59:16 +0000

Joost was supposed to be a major part of the future of TV. Instead, the streaming video service went from hot startup to a candidate for “Whatever Happen To?” lists surprisingly quickly. On Tuesday, news broke that it’s refocusing on providing white-label video services, losing its CEO, and laying off much of its staff.

What happened? A whole bunch of things. Over at GigaOM, Om Malik has a good analysis of why Joost will be remembered mostly for having failed to live up to expectations. (The first one that came to my mind–it’s on Om’s list–is summed up in the word Hulu. In many ways, that site turned out to be pretty much what Joost was supposed to be but never quite became.)

PS3 Gets a Joost Player, With Crippled Content Of Course

Jared Newman — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:04:33 +0000

I’m getting used to the idea that when an online video portal creates a TV-optimized viewing experience, it won’t let people watch any of the content they actually care about.

Such is the case with Joost’s new video player, designed with the Playstation 3′s Web browser in mind. While it’s good for watching music videos and promotional television clips, Destructoid says Viacom, Warner Bros. and CBS content isn’t available (so, no Ren & Stimpy). CBS imposes similar limitations on YouTube XL, a viewer optimized for television.

The optimized Joost viewer, accessible through labs.joost.com/tv, arranges navigation in a manner similar to YouTube XL. It even turns the PS3 controller into a remote by mapping useful functions to the buttons. Destructoid tried it out and said the video quality looks “just below standard definition” on a 720p monitor. Too bad there’s no television to watch.

Like Hulu, it’s been possible to access Joost through the PS3′s browser since October, when the console updated to include Flash 9. Still, there’s no easy way to go full screen. You can zoom in the browser to fit the video frame, but that compromises video quality. And of course, mapping playback to the PS3 controller is out of the question.

Joost’s full content library, I assume, is still available through the PS3 in non-optimized form, making it just a little more inconvenient to watch. If anyone’s got a PS3 and wants to give the old way a try, I’d be interested to hear the results. But I can’t be responsible for any effects Ren & Stimpy might have on your sanity.

Joost to Go Website-only on Friday

Ed Oswald — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:02:18 +0000

After debuting to a great deal of fanfare in 2006, it looks as if Joost will finally be giving up on P2P as a means of delivery for its content. In a message to users of its software application, the company said videos after Friday would only be viewable through the website.

The writing may have been on the wall then: Joost launched its web-based platform in October to generally positive reviews. Last month, it debuted an iPhone application, which appears still to be unaffected by the company’s decision.

Joost’s software application was an attempt at keeping bandwidth costs low by distributing some of the streaming to the P2P network. However, it must at this point just be an unnecessary extra expense to develop, and streaming videos using Flash (like everybody else) is obviously more economical.

With Joost pulling out of P2P, analysts like Forrester’s James McQuivey are saying the use of P2P for legal means is now a thing of the past:

Peer-to-peer “as a platform for legal consumer video is dead. The majority of what people watch on the PC is streamed. More than half the country is on broadband and compression is very effective now.”

Seems so far from the talk in the middle of this decade where many legitimate companies were looking to use P2P as a legal way to transfer content. Now, all but a few are out of business or have significantly altered their business models.

Joost for iPhone: Good, As Far as It Goes

Harry McCracken — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 08:04:57 +0000

Joost, the pioneering video site from the folks behind Skype and Kazaa, is available in a new, smaller form tonight: on the iPhone. In some ways it’s quite impressive–it faithfully brings the Joost look, feel, functionality, and content into an app that feels at home on the iPhone. What you think of it will likely boil down mostly to how you feel about the programming that Joost has to offer.

Some folks who took a look at the app earlier this evening have been reporting playback problems; I haven’t encountered any so far, which may be a sign that Joost has worked out some initial kinks. (There is a disconcertingly long pause with no indication of what’s going on before playback begins in some cases, but once it starts it’s gone smoothly for me.) My biggest gripe from a technical standpoint is that Joost, unlike the built-in YouTube app, only works via Wi-Fi, which limits its usefulness when you’re out and about and can’t depend on being within range of a hotspot:

But Joost uses that fast Wi-Fi connection to do some pretty good-looking video–in motion, it looks even better than these still images suggest:

The Joost player works well (although if you can fast-forward your way through a video, I haven’t figured out how) and the features for searching and browsing work exactly as you’d want them to on an iPhone:

Other than the lack of support for cellular connections, the big disappointment with Joost ‘s iPhone app has nothing to do with the app–it’s the selection of TV and movie programming that Joost has to offer, which is hit-or-miss, with the emphasis on the misses. Yes, there are 46,000 items to choose from, including some name-brand, full-length TV (Smallville) and movies (Ghostbusters, Fifth Element, etc.). But Hulu simply has a far richer, more interesting treasure trove of stuff to watch–including full-length versions of some items which Joost has only in clip form, such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

You know that Joost’s library is a bit on the thin side when the highlights include…well, for instance, this:

So respectable though Joost’s iPhone app may be, it mostly makes me hungry for a similar Hulu one–especially one that’s not limited to Wi-Fi.

Windows Vista: Bring in the Gurus!

Harry McCracken — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:17:43 +0000

Okay, I’m already sick of talking about Jerry Seinfeld and churros and shoes and Bill Gates’ underwear. There must be more to life. Or even to Microsoft’s plans for Windows Vista.

Like a Genius Bar, Except Without the Black T-Shirts and the Bar Part
The quirky Gates-Seinfeld Vista ad that doesn’t mention Vista may be today’s biggest tech story, but it’s only one front in an elaborate plan to reignite interest in Windows which Microsoft made public today. Another initiative involves sending “Microsoft Gurus” to retail stores such as Best Buy to answer consumers’ questions about Windows PCs. It’s an obvious knockoff of Apple’s Genius Bars, but if it’s done right, it’s an excellent idea: One of the problems with most computer retailers other than Apple Stores is that staffers’ levels of expertise is erratic to say the least. The Gurus aren’t going to be able to replicate the Genius experience–Geniuses fix computers as well as provide general advice–but they stand a better chance of making life better for Windows users than Jerry Seinfeld ever could.

Read more at: All About Microsoft

Joost in the Browser
Joost, the video service launched last year by the creators of Skype and Kazaa, arrived with great fanfare. But compared to newer services like Hulu, it gets remarkably little attention these days. It’s getting attention today, though: It’s going to reportedly dump its client application in favor of a new approach that’s entirely browser-based. That represents a major shift in strategy, but makes a lot of sense. You gotta think that most media services will go browser-only over time–maybe even including iTunes eventually.

Read more at: GigaOM

Attack of the Facebot
A team of researchers in Greece and Singapore built a “Photo of the Day” Facebook app that held a secret: It was designed to silently launch denial-of-service attacks behind the scenes. The researchers also speak of the possibility of Facebook apps to deposit malware on users’ computers or steal personal data. None of which is really surprising–Facebook applications are, after all, applications…and when you let applications of any sort onto your PC you must accept the possibility of dangerous ones sneaking through.

Read more at: PC World

Google Chrome: Cool! Vulnerable!
Most reviews of Google’s Chrome browser are at least guardedly positive. But browser fans aren’t the only ones downloading it and taking it for a test drive–so are the hackers, good and bad, who find holes in software that bad guys can take advantage of. Google is taking note and working on fixes, and like many a software company before it, it’s politely asking security experts to be careful about how they disclose vulnerabilities. The company presumably knew what it was getting into when it decided to go into the browser business–let’s hope it staffed up with security experts of its own.

Read more at: Zero Day

One Laptop Per Amazon
Starting in November, Amazon.com will sell the One Laptop Per Child Foundation’s XO “$100 laptops” under the “Give One Get One” program that lets buyers pay for one laptop for a deserving child in a developing nation, and one for themselves. That’s a huge relief, since the idea is so worthy but the OLPC Foundation proved incapable of promptly and smoothly delivering the laptops to buyers last holiday season when it tried to do the program without a merchant partner. I finally got my XO months after I ordered it, but I’m tempted to try again this year, so that another kid who needs one gets it.

Read more at: Elecgtronista

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