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Today Joost launched it's new, non-download required version of it's service, which joins Hulu and a scad of other companies in delivering real television shows and movies straight to your Flash-10-enabled browser. Joost is based out of Estonia and founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, who also founded both Skype and Kazaa.
At first glance, I'm unimpressed. I really loved the Joost application - the downloadable version - because it provided a great user experience. It was smooth, seemless, and worked really really well.
Joost in my browser is none of those things. The navigation is confusing and the content is just so-so. To make matters even more confusing, not all of the shows it purports to offer are really available in every region. For instance, in investigating Joost I tried to watch an episode of Robot Chicken. Apparently Robot Chicken isn't available in my region, so Joost took it upon themselves to show me a different video instead. The video they chose was "Womanizer" by Britney Spears, and it opens with a shot of her lying naked on her back in a sauna or something. Definitely NSFW, not the thing I wanted my laptop to start loading on it's own here in my office while I walked over to get a drink from our fountain. Thanks for that, Joost. This seems to be the biggest differentiator for Joost - questionable content. They have an entire category of shows marked "Sexy", featuring models and cow-girls riding bulls and things like that. Aren't Europeans supposed to be more cultured and refined than their raunchy American counter parts? I can't imagine a "sexy" channel on Hulu.
Questionable content aside, the service seems to work well. After canning Britney I found a video, The Professional, which played in my region just fine. The quality is good, the video streams on a rather taxed network just fine, and everything seems pretty good.
Joost is backed by CBS among its many other content partners, so it's fair to assume it's going to attract a lot of attention away from NBC and Fox backed Hulu. Besides movies, they also have The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Friends, all of which are sure to draw big audiences assuming Joost can provide enough episodes to keep them coming back.
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"They have an entire category of shows marked "Sexy", featuring models and cow-girls riding bulls and things like that. Aren't Europeans supposed to be more cultured and refined than their raunchy American counter parts?"
That wasn't, definitely, a nice statement. You made your point about the unfortunate choice of Joost. There was no need to treat the Europeans as if we were arrogants. Thank you for remembering us there's (not only) an ocean between us.
The quality is good, the video streams on a rather taxed network just fine, and everything seems pretty good
>> Aren't Europeans supposed to be more cultured and refined than their raunchy American counter parts?
And this comes from a guy with a taste for Robot Chickens?
Touché! But remember: robot chicken wasn't available in my region. Maybe it's a Europe only show? :)
Great, I think that I will give Joost look for a while.
Mike from caravan awning guide
Hmm Joost .. lets see if it can provide high quality streaming videos i always prefer them when i am at my office .
online college education || snorkel molokini
Sounds good. I'd love to see about how far they can challenge up the likes of Youtube or Metacafe.
Chris Gibson Mole || John Lewis Job Vanacies
Sounds great, i will try it today.
Not bad at all, i like it
cams live
I hope this succeeds as these are the same guys that gave us skype and kazaa.
lee @Wacker Plate
Seems like a well designed application especially with its looks. Let's see if it can deliver.
Alvin from folding chair station
In my opinion best oinline tv site is http://gtv.id.lv/en there are hundreds of channels, sports, music, news etc. also it's very easy to use
I don't think it would click with many users. There are many other applications who are much more appealing in terms of features and layout design. Mobie from holly mann honest riches
I too prefer the downloaded version... far better and easier.
Well it's shame it's gone now, it had great potential if only they had invested more into the platform in terms of memory consumption.
People prefer web apps, but they went the software route. And the thing is that people didn't want to spend up their own bandwidth sharing with others prefering apps like watch tv online and hulu that rely on tried and tested means that users are comfortable with already.
Agreed - Download is much faster / better
Not bad at all, i like it