03.22.07
Joined Joost Public Beta
I got an account on the Joost public beta program today. I hadn’t been real aggressive about trying to get one, but I figured I may as well since they’ll launch it soon.
I accidently forgot to pay attention to the EULA as I clicked through it, so I’m not sure if there is some NDA stuff in there. I doubt it. I don’t have much to report in any case, as I have only played with it a little bit.
The idea for Joost is peer-to-peer legal television-quality programs on demand. Unfortunately right now the service is extremely content-starved and it’s clearly much more of a technical beta than anything else. There are some interesting documentaries and music video content, but if you’re looking for prime time US television, it’s not there. Yet.
As far as the technical features and interface goes, it’s not a traditional Windows UI app and that may cause some learning curve. It looks and feels more like a Flash web application. This isn’t necessarily a negative and it does make the interface feel fresh and trendy, but it may create usability issues for some.
The video codec they are using is fairly resource intensive. My computer isn’t the newest on the block (in fact, it’s becoming a bit out dated as evidenced in my recent experimentation with Second Life), but I have found that I need to close other applications and give Joost everything my system has.
As I play with it more, I plan to send them some feedback. So far it seems promising, but this platform will live and die by its content so it’s too early to say what the real prospects are for Joost.
Tags: Joost
freestmind said,
March 22, 2007 at 4:43 am
I was able to use it yesterday after receiving an invitation, and the content most certainly is lacking; however from a technical aspect it does seem to be working very well. It really shouldn’t use up that much of your system resources, as the transfer protocol is similar to that of torrents and other P2P tech and the video codec is high quality but simple enough - there have been various conflicts and memory leaks associated with running the program though.
And, if you should happen to get any invites to share, come on over to JoostSwap.com - you could get something cool for them!
Ramesh said,
March 29, 2007 at 10:45 am
I want to use joost. Can anyone send me an invitation to me.