‘Venice Project’ launches in beta as Joost
Cory Bergman January 16th, 2007
The highly-anticipated online video site — which promises to provide a TV experience on the web — has launched in private beta as Joost.com (which is pronounced “juiced.”) Initially dubbed “The Venice Project,” Joost is the brainchild of Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who sold this little company called Skype for $2.6 billion to eBay in 2005. Just like Skype, Joost requires a downloadable app. The idea is to make it “as TV-like” as possible, with a program guide, channels and full-screen viewing. It’s powered by peer-to-peer technology, and it allows real-time chat and comprehensive search. Joost has inked deals with a handful of content providers, including Warner Music, and the company has said it will add many more in the near future. I haven’t seen it in action yet (waiting for my beta application to be approved), but Om Malik has taken it for a spin and has this to say. Meanwhile, here’s a screen shot with a couple more after the jump…
8 Comments Add your own
1. Rex | January 17th, 2007 at 1:31 am
I’ve been using it too. Interface is alright, quality is okay, but the selection sucks. The add-ons are probably what makes-or-breaks it, but right now I can’t quite see that big-future-vision-thang in it.
2. thomas | January 17th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Yeah, i’ve been Beta testing this for a while now and really im not that impressed. The quality is ok and the interface is sort of cool but I just don’t see the whole p2p thing working out for this project. I understand that Niklas & Janus has enough money to do what they wish but quit hyping this up until it actually shows promise.
3. thedetroitchannel | January 17th, 2007 at 8:20 am
i wonder if we don’t set too high expectations of any of these launches right out of the gate
i would concentrate on the user’s ability to actually USE web channels easily.
great content on a sh1tty app might be worse than the other way around.
remember, this is not tv
4. Allen | January 17th, 2007 at 9:12 am
I’m a Mac user so I’m screwed for now.
5. Rocker | January 17th, 2007 at 9:44 am
Thomas…or anyone really….I’d be interested in a thread discussing p2p..is it really the future for studios looking to distribute video?
6. thomas | January 17th, 2007 at 10:28 am
no, I don’t believe that it is the future of distributing video for one primary reason, peers need to store the content for the model to work. I don’t think enough people would be willing or have the available space to store HQ content on their computers and currently most home connections are limited in fact their upload speed is crippled by our ISP’s. Yes, p2p is successful, but primarily for one reason, the sharing of mostly illegal music, video and applications. If the US kept pace with the rest of the civilized world maybe p2p would be a great medium for content distribution but we are years behind and I don’t think we have the infrastructure to support p2p for the masses.
7. Steve Safran | January 17th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
P2P is a workaround, not a business plan. Let’s face it - we understand P2P, but we’re pretty geek-intensive. Civilians aren’t going to adopt P2P as a mainstream concept.
The future of video distribution is video on demand. P2P exists because content providers won’t allow us any other way to get content on demand. The more that breaks down, the less we’ll depend on P2P. If the fastest Torrent I downloaded was MUCH slower than a download from the Apple iTunes store.
8. Drew | January 18th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
I think Joost (pronounced toast in NL) will do fine. But they’ll have problems with content. Why should Disney place it’s content side by side with NBCU’s or Viacom’s. And have to pay Joost for the privilege? They’ll want to keep control and the ad revenues. And they can as Joost’s technology isn’t proprietary.
I think P2P is the future. VOD just doesn’t scale to the numbers that movie and TV guys are used to. And since everything is moving towards the web they’ll go with P2P.
Of course we are in P2P streaming biz so you might want to take what I say with a grain (or more) of salt.
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