My Roommate got laid off due to the economic recession.
At least that’s what he’s telling people. Last Friday morning he woke up a few hours before he was supposed to go to work for Joost, and found an apologetic email from his boss saying that they were so very sorry, but there wasn’t much for him to do there anymore. Good thing he kept his day job, err, other job?
So about a month ago when I found out Joost was going to relaunch as a non-downloadable application, I assumed its popluarity would take off. It seems as though, however, that not only are they not the hot internet app but that they are probably facing some economic/sponsor issues as well. I think also with this months return of popular television shows, audiences are focusing their attention on abc.com, nbc.com the CW’s website for reruns of current episodes–after all Joost seems to just focus on the past. In addition to that theory, I also noticed that within this past week, IMDB.com has been offering a free tv/movie service via Hulu.com, which probably has cast a shadow over Joost as well.
Ren and Stimpy
The Joost I fell in love with was originally an application you downloaded directly onto your desk top. You could, just like real televisioin, navigate through different channels to find a show appealing to you. While watching the episode, you are interrupted only a few times with very brief commercials from sponsors such as Honda. What I found to be very unique about the site is that it offers up the option of sharing the episode you are watching with friends. Interesting: a tv website and an SNS?
Now the environment has completely changed. Rather than downloading an application, all a viewer needs to do is download a plug-in and they are good to go. After doing some research, I also found that Joost will be releasing a flash-based version in mid October. Why not do that to begin with?
One other aspect of Joost is that it relies on a peer-to-peer network, similar to napster and kazaa. Their explanation is rather complex, so I’ll insert it directly onto this post:
What I want to know from you is this: does knowing that you are more connected to other audiences make you want to watch these classic shows from this site? Or do you not care about what kind of communication you are interacting in, just as long as you don’t miss out on Macguyver?
4 Comments
Joost has always seemed interesting to me (uh, ever since your first post about it), and I had no idea that it was a P2P thing. I just thought that it was like any other site like Hulu.com.
To answer your question, knowing that I’m more connected to other audiences when I’m watching classic shows really makes me feel good. Knowing that I’m not the only person who really, really wants to watch “ren and stimpy” or “Bewitched” kind of gives me some affirmation that what I’m watching isn’t total trash, I suppose.
I’m not quite sure I understand 100% about the benefits of using P2P for Joost. Does P2P give us a wider variety of shows we can access/watch? In essence, this really does set Joost apart from Hulu and sites like Megavideo and Tudou…is this a better way to stream videos online?
That’s what I’m still trying to figure out–it’s kind of complicated. Because they have access to these tv shows (and network logos) and sponsorship, clearly Joost doesn’t run on a P2P system for content stealing. I know that the company is owned by the creators of Skype, so perhaps the p2p system is for pure SNS reasons.
I’ve been following Joost for a while as well, and I really prefer the old platform. I spoke with people at Joost (I interviewed there, and am REALLY glad I didn’t end up interning there! haha) and they told me about how on the new platform you’d have a minifeed where you could see what friends are watching, etc. What if I don’t want my friends to know that I’m watching Bewitched? Also, they spoke of a “laugh button” that one would press whenever they laughed at a video. The user’s friends would then be notified of the fact that they laughed. This goes back to my argument as the internet as a diary of sorts. Why do I want my friends to know what guilty pleasures I’m watching and what I’m laughing at? The whole idea is creepy, and I really don’t think it’s going to take off. It’s basically a combination of video and MODERATED UGC where THEY decide what videos are good enough to be posted. I like the old Joost, and think that this new platform is going to flop. Now explore why
I think this new format idea is a little odd. I think the real change Joost needs is the way their videos are organized. There is no order to the way things appear, and while you can search for a certain show, its pretty impossible to find the exact video you want amidst all the moving squares that have the episodes. What about a list? Alphabetical organization? I think Joost might be going a little far in the P2P idea. Maybe they think that they are revolutionizing the world of online videos, but I really just want whatever I’m watching to load quickly. If I wanted to talk to random people, I’d join a chat room.
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