Joost on iPhone, iTouch

Joost was seen as "the next big thing" when it opened up it's P2P television venture a good while back. And yes, it was a bit exciting, and a bit like no one had done before (although there was, and are, quite a number of competitors with the same idea atm, like Babelgum, Vuze, Veoh etc etc, including the real competitors like Hulu or the BBC iPlayer).

But it was not really meant to be, at least not as the creators had intended. It's since evolved from a download application to a purely online and Flashbased videofeed, and it did seem as if it was meant to go out with a whimper at some point, sooner or later. Alas, perhaps not.

Joost has now teamed up with Apple, designed an interface specially for iPhone and iTouch (since the iPhone as of yet does not support Flash) and is now offering the full Joost experience on iPhone as well.

This is definitely a step in the right direction. What remains to be seen is if Joost can up their content to something a little bit more engaging and exciting than what they have on offer now - if I as an iPhone owner have 10 minutes to watch something, I don't want to spend 4 of those searching for anything watchable... so, more premium content, thank you! :)

Miro challenging Joost, Babelgum et al

New kid on the block, Miro, is trying to challenge Joost, Babelgum and the rest of the bunch with its slightly different take on things. See. Miro is first of all an Open Source internet television app, formerly known by the much-less-savvy name "Democracy Player" (I mean, that's NOT a selling name, Miro ftw!). It also has some other nifty features, and a whole different look to it.

It's campaining with the actual tagline "Better than Joost" - pointing out that they have 2.500 unrestricted channels, loadsa HD material and are open source. Valid points, all of them.

The thing that makes Miro stand out in a positive (albeit probably fairly illegal) way from the rest of the pack is the possibility to subscribe to RSS-feeds of favourite tv shows. Just grab the RSS feed from somewhere, set up a channel on Miro and the app will take care of the rest, providing you with a new episode every time one is available. For a users guide, check out this CNet article.

My 2 cents would be that Miro will work as a good partner to Joost. It can get to stuff that Joost can't, and it can do it with a minimum of hassle. To just watch something - without really knowing what to be looking for, just killing time - Joost is still better. Also Miro crashed a couple of times on my laptop, whereas Joost has been running faultlessly for the past year - might just be me, but the feeling I get is a little bit unsteady.

Miro - try it out! Just don't get caught :)

This is where you would've seen a picture of a show on Miro, but alas! you only get to see the app itself. Oh joy, oh rapture.

Hear, hear! The latest word on Joost.

It's always nice, and a bit annoying, when someone else articulates your own feelings in words in a much better way than you yourself have been able to do. So, it's with a mixture of both that I just read William Coopers article on the new developments over at Joost on his Informitv-pages - read it here - and find that the feeling in the back of my head I've had every time I've opened Joost (or Babelgum for that matter), and the probable reason why I check it out once a week - tops - nowadays, was just exactly what William stated at the end of the article.

As he points out, Joost and its rivals represent a breakthrough when it comes to technical matters, programming, how to use the Net and so on. What they don't represent is a better way of consuming media - at least not a more appealing way. As William says -

"At the moment, [Joost and Babelgum] seem rather sterile. Unlike television, which is constantly appealing to its sense of immediacy through a continuous flow of programming and promotion, these video-on-demand environments are less dynamic. As with many other on-demand systems, there is a sense that the same material will still be there tomorrow, in which case why watch it now?"

Quite so.

Babelgum, Joost, Vuze, Microsoft Surface...there are so many of them!

Just started testing Babelgum as well (you all know, that Joost-competitor). Must say that at the moment my bucks are on Joost in that particular battle, as I find the usability of Babelgum a bit less intuitive and straight-forward. Might just be me, but I'm finding it hard to easily get to what I want to look at - or even find anything that I might want to look at. Joost gives a quicker and clearer overview of content on the service, which in my book gives them the clear advantage.

Hadn't noticed, but Azureus, the Bittorrent client that is the most downloaded client of them all, has also gone legit in the past months. Their service - Vuze - has made deals with a lot of content providers, such as Showtime Networks, BBC Worldwide, Bennett Media Worldwide, G4, A&E Networks (including A&E, History, and Biography channels), National Geographic, and Starz Media (this I copypasted from their website, sorry :) - and are offering up SD and HD content to all subscribers. Another competitor to Joost and Babelgum, hooray!

Also,if you want to watch movies, anime, cartoons or tv-series, you can visit Joox. It is a portal to the Stage6 service on the divx.com platform, and my god do they have lots of content. Good quality as well, even on old stuff like Fawlty Towers. LMAO indeed.

Finally, looks like Microsoft have gone all aestethic all of a sudden. Check out the new Microsoft Surface, available later this year, which is a desktop integrated into a 30" table screen. It's interface looks really really neat, and there seems to be lots of nifty details and features in it. Have to get me one soon :)


Microsoft Surface, looking good. But will it bug? ... OF COURSE IT WILL!

Wa-hey!

Joost teams up with Ministry of Sound! As an old techno-head, I can't but say "Well done!". Testing Joost just became even nicer.. :)

Joost the next generation

The more I test (or watch, rather) Joost, the more I would like it to be:

- HD quality
- loadsa more content
- equipped with a much more advance GUI and possiblities to program / record / whatever
- have a lot of funky widgets (the kind that you use twice a year but are really essential to have)

and all sorts of other stuff. With that, I'd be a happier person. At least until I find something else to bitch about.

* * *

Last ice-fishing expedition yesterday was a success (as in "we didn't go through the ice and drown"), yet still a failure (as in "the bloody fish eluded us while the grandpa sitting 20 meters from us was hauling fish after fish")

Well, season's over now, so next time it'll be with some other, more familiar gear.

Our non-existant fishing luck might have something to do with our bait, as the maggotts had somehow died during the night. Quite frankly, were I a fish I wouldn't eat those either :)

* * *

Election day yesterday in Finland. My candidate did not win, but it was fairly close. And no, despite all the results from the "test-which-candidate-thinks-like-you" web tests, I did not vote for the communist party.

* * *

Babelgum, the new Joost (even though there IS no Joost on the market yet :)

Hi ho Silver!

Funny thing, that. As soon as someone comes up with something, someone else does as well. Just have a look at Babelgum, a service now in Betatesting (just like Joost), that is set to "blend the lean-back experience of traditional TV with the interactive and social power of the Internet" (just like Joost), offering 2cutting-edge peer-to-peer technology to stream video to your PC safely and efficiently at near-TV resolution" (just like Joost) and lost of other stuff (just like Joost).

As I'm not (yet) betatesting Babelgum, I can't comment on the service itself, but William Cooper over at informitv is testing both, and has a pretty good review here. By the looks of it, what the consumer would REALLY like is a blend of the two. Which is about as likely to happen as a sudden and everlasting peace in the Middle East, or some such thing.

Well, as a future consumer of TV over broadband, I'll just say that the more people are working on getting these things to work better and better, with niftier and niftier widgets and GUI:s, the better. Keep'em coming!

Joost again...

Just a quick note - hats off to the guys at Joost.

Not so much because it would be the best running thing with streaming media over the internet or anything like that (because it's not, even though it IS quite nifty and nice).

Nah, hats off because they manage to do it all over again. With Skype, their last venture, the buzz and the hype was building on itself, a prime example of viral marketing. With Joost, they've managed to do it again. Lots of people are talking about Joost, lots of people are writing about it, lots of people know someone who is betatesting it and have heard good things about it... and the hype keeps on growing.

With Skype, we customers got a wonderful communicating tool, and the guys at Skype got billions of dollars for it. Win-win-situation, no? Hope the same goes for Joost :)

Betatesting Joost

Started beta-testing Joost today. First impressions:

- a lot like what I would expect from a well founded IPTV venture
- slightly dodgy on the picture quality, most probably something that will improve. Still way better than other competitors out there.
- EPG needs some working on, suggestions, reviews, ratings etc should help the viewer more
- good feel of the service, nice layout, well constructed as a whole
- some really nice widgets, but I'm sure there'll be lots more around soon

Will look forward to testing it a lot more! As of now it gets the thumbs up, definitely. Let's wait and see what happens.. :)

Joost - why not?

Well, Joost is looking good. The project formerly known as The Venice Project (as written about on this blog in mid-December) is generating quite a stir on the IPTV-market.

See, Joost is a Very Good Thing [tm] for PC owners (and Macs as well). It uses the P2P-principles of Bittorrent, for example, to give IPTV to the world. All you need is a 500 Kb/s line and you would have perfect broadcast quality - which is just fabulous. For a pretty good review of the possibilities, the pros and the cons, read this story from The Register. Also revealed today are new content deals for Joost, enabling them to offer content from Paramount Pictures, MTV etc.

Conclusion? This is a pretty darn good development of the home computer, helping to turn it into the media center of the home in a much better fashion than, for instance, Microsofts attempts. But - for television to be good and for television to be something that people want to watch, it's just not good enough with a technologically perfect system. We need good television programs as well. Let's hope the Joost-people remember this.