Joost’ing on Friday night
OK, OK, I cry “uncle.” My readers tell me that Joost is the hottest thing since sliced bread and that I should give it some more time. So, tonight, I am playing with it a bit more. I still hate the UI. My son loves it. I’m just too old, I guess.
But the quality — when you’re on a decent connection — is pretty good. I watched a surfing video and “Beautiful Lie.” Nice. Except there was an ad in the middle of the movie. That really threw me. I don’t know why. Maybe it was due to the delay. It was almost like the network was down for a few microseconds there, then an ad came on. It was very jarring and then I realized why: on network TV they prepare you for the ads. They pick a good place in the dialog to “hook you” into sticking around through the ad. Then they fade out, with a network identifier.
Anyway, the success of Joost is out of my hands. It’s clearly popular. It’s clearly going to have tons of interesting content on it. The UI is funky style, and once you learn your way around it’s not too bad. I’m old, remember.
Joost away! Oh, and don’t bother me for invites. I have 734 emails ahead of you even if I had two to give away.
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March 3rd, 2007 at 2:48 am
Glad you’re coming to a more balanced view.
Re the ads: I can’t tell you more, but work is under way to insert them in the proper places.
Have a nice week-end.
March 3rd, 2007 at 5:54 am
Scoble - are you finding good content on Joost that’s actually worth watching? Surfing video? Movies with ads at awkward times (Ugo’s comment withstanding). No thanks.
When I checked it out (admittedly, only one time) better content could be found elsewhere and without needing to run yet another P2P app. Yeah, maybe Joost is shinier than the next guy, but still. Do they have more/better/fresher content in there than a month ago?
I don’t see Joost being anywhere close to on the radar like Skype, but if they get some really compelling content and don’t eat up too much bandwidth (fat chance) who knows.
There is going to be a P2P backlash at some point, and some are already feeling it. Active internet families are already seeing bandwidth being taxed heavily. I think you’ll see people intentionally moving away from P2P apps until/unless more bandwidth is brought into the homes.
March 3rd, 2007 at 6:27 am
The Ad insertion is Buggy at the moment
I hope Joos offer what I call less Intrusive (annoying) Ads like Ticker Ads ,Persistent Overlay bugs ,Video Hyperlinks (Microsoft)and just about anything that doesn’t interrupt your viewing experience unless you want it to .Video Sites like Bebo already have Graphical Tickers in their clips and so do the Network and Cable channels but a platform like Joost can make them interactive..
So you can have what has been dubbed the “rocking chair experience”, either lean forward or lean back .
March 3rd, 2007 at 6:35 am
Yep, The GUI is rough, or at least feels that way for us ‘older’ users. I sent comments to them about this earlier in the beta, but I guess they don’t agree as nothing has changed. If the content is good, I’ll overlook the GUI.
For those looking for invites..
I’m randomly giving away two Joost invites - just leave a comment on my blog thread at:
http://www.edholloway.com/archive/2007/03/01/Joost-_2800_Venice-Project_2900_-Contest-II.aspx
Assuming Joost keeps giving out Invite Tokens, I’ll do this every few weeks.
March 3rd, 2007 at 9:20 am
The ads are annoying. I mentioned in the other thread there is an Academy Award nominated short in the Indie Film section. Fields of Mudan. Pretty heavy flick.
A lot of the music videos are pretty lame, but it’s early. I’m willing to wait. I think the hype machine will bring some new broadcasters to this medium.
March 3rd, 2007 at 9:46 am
P.S. Do you think this means you are getting old?
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:33 am
I want an invite!!!!! It sucks you guys get to have all the fun.
Josh Chandler
http://www.techoriphic.com
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:48 am
Thanks for turning us on to joost - hadn’t heard about it but going to try to get our little show about ink on it.
http://www.inkisit.com
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:24 am
I am on the same boat as you as at this juncture I don’t really see the draw for it. Maybe once the Viacom content is on it.
Since being in the beta, I have probably used it 3 times mostly watching the surfing video.
Oh and IMO, Babelgum seems to look better when I run the two side by side.
March 3rd, 2007 at 12:27 pm
i want an invite please…:) it’s my birthday today if anyone’s feeling generous and nice…:)
send to damodt@gmail.com
thanks…:) Dave
March 3rd, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Complaining about content at this stage is like eating raw waffles, content will come, wait for it to toast, they have signed up more professional content than anyone yet. Most other’s are focusing on all that mixed-bag of “User Generated Content”, I don’t think Joost will play that up here.
The P2P stream back-end and the video quality, and the ‘best of TV and best of the internet’, with legit content, and then search, archive and media management functionality with less ad’s than TV, make this the closest hook to real ‘Internet TV’. With the all Flash PLayer networks, eventually the Bandwith bills will eat them alive, a streaming P2P solution like this just might work.
Ironic, the internet was supposed to ‘replace’ TV, but the only thing working is LIKE TV. Things work better when you do the “and” over the “or”.
I don’t see what the fuss is all over the UI, it’s basic Consumer Electronics style, beta rough yes, but that’s why it’s a beta. They should have shored it up a bit more, with real beta testers, before going out to the marketing “beta testers”. And they should of had more content to jazz people with. It needed a few more private beta test rounds before going wide.
March 3rd, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Well kids i have 10 invites for Joost to give away.. to anyone interested just send a e-mail to Bloggeratto@gmail.com.
March 4th, 2007 at 11:09 am
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March 4th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Interesting you complain about advertisements, given this is what your salary is funded by and what you have based a career on.
Maybe your judgement is flawed - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/6411495.stm. why not get “offline” for a while and have a reality check.
I see Mr Coulter is back online knowing everything about everything. I’m sure the entire IT business now breathes a big sigh of relief, glad that such constructive insight is freely available again.
March 4th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
smee: I have nothing against advertising. Just advertising done poorly. This is advertising that’s not contextual, that’s interruptive (even more interruptive than that which hits us on mainstream TV), and that’s not even really interesting.
By the way. Find the interruptive advertising on ScobleShow. You might find an example or two, but it certainly isn’t as jarring as the advertising on Joost.
March 4th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
What one person finds interesting is not necessarily what others will. Constant generalisation turned into self-opinionated “insight” is fast becoming the downside of blogs, really impacting on credibility.
As an example - you figured that interviewing someone about chip density was more interesting than people dealing with cancer.
March 4th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Freely available again? Hah, for real insights and massive production, umm show lottsa folding green stuff. :)
March 5th, 2007 at 6:18 am
[...] This post was originally written on Saturday February 3. Since then Robert has given Joost another go and has revised his original opinion. I feel my comments still stand, so this post goes up, but it [...]
March 6th, 2007 at 8:28 am
I’m not all that excited about it, either. With the new invites issued to testers over the weekend, several offers to give them away have popped up in the videoblogging group. Interestingly, most of these invites are still going begging - in spite of all the fuss a couple of months ago, no one in the videoblogging group is all that interested now, it seems.
I have two if anyone wants them. The price is you have to leave an intelligent comment on my site.
March 8th, 2007 at 2:46 am
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March 17th, 2007 at 4:01 am
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April 5th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
I just got my invite to Joost and have been using it today. I guess I would consider it over-hyped. I thought the quality was lower than I was expecting as well as the content is slightly more limited than I was expecting. I think that I would have been much more satified if my expectations for others had not been raised to such a high level. However, in saying this, I realize Joost is still in it’s beta phase and I do believe that they are definitely onto something big here. I will be looking forward to the release of newer versions.
April 9th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
An invite would be highly appreciated. AETrailblazer@gmail.com
May 16th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Now that Joost is giving away ‘unlimited’ invites to ‘friends’… would you be so kind as to extend an invite? I know there’s a queue… but if you feel so inclined.. :)
June 12th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
For sure, any Joost invites please send this way!!
October 15th, 2007 at 1:12 am
I am on the same boat as you as at this juncture I don’t really see the draw for it. Maybe once the Viacom content is on it.
Since being in the beta, I have probably used it 3 times mostly watching the surfing video.
Oh and IMO, Babelgum seems to look better when I run the two side by side.
October 26th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Interesting you complain about advertisements, given this is what your salary is funded by and what you have based a career on.