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October 1, 2007

Joost Officially Launches

Mark Hendrickson

38 comments »

This past July we reported that Joost, a company that has been working for two years to provide quality on-demand IPTV, would launch by the end of this year.

Today, the company announces the availability of public Beta 1.0 on its blog. This would be a bigger deal if Joost had not already signed up over one million private beta users, 10,000 of which came directly from TechCrunch.

If you haven’t checked Joost out yet, head over there to see what all the fuss is about. You can find our previous coverage of the company (and its competitors) here.

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2007 at 3:11 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Hornswaggled

    October 1st, 2007 at 4:13 pm

  2. The Clock is Ticking for Joost

    October 12th, 2007 at 7:57 am

  3. IT Swat Blog » Blog Archive » The Clock is Ticking for Joost

    October 12th, 2007 at 7:23 pm

  4. TechCrunch en français » Pour Joost, le temps est compté

    October 14th, 2007 at 12:27 am

  5. Best Stocks Info

    April 29th, 2008 at 6:30 pm

Comments

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  1. Michael Arrington

    October 1st, 2007 at 3:27 pm

    They really milked the notion of a “private beta” to the extreme. To the point where I sort of lost respect for them, actually.

  2. Ira

    October 1st, 2007 at 3:47 pm

    Having to download a client is really going to hurt them, that’s a step backward from what people have come to expect. I am so used to Youtube and instant gratification, why would I want to use Joost? It also kills their viral marketing since it’s hard to share a funny/cool show with a friend. None of the shows listed looked interesting either.

  3. Stephen Lev

    October 1st, 2007 at 3:51 pm

    There’s no Joost buzz/hype left anymore. They’re old news and by looking at the compete/alexa numbers, they’ve been a failure so far.

  4. aw

    October 1st, 2007 at 3:52 pm

    but wow is the interface slick. perhaps a little busy but a big improvement over previous versions. only place i can find rocky and bullwinkle and mr. magoo for my kids to watch so it works for me.

  5. Chris T

    October 1st, 2007 at 3:55 pm

    Yeah, google (gmail, orkut etc etc etc) and every other web company does exactly the same thing. Why is that a problem Mike ?

  6. Steve Ballmer

    October 1st, 2007 at 3:57 pm

    Wonder if they need a little investment capital?
    (strings attached)

  7. Louis-Eric

    October 1st, 2007 at 4:01 pm

    #3: The Compete and Alexa numbers do not reflect the time people spend in front of the application, which is the real story. You only visit the site to download the project and get going. Get going it will: the project is absolutely stunning.

  8. Fabian Schonholz

    October 1st, 2007 at 4:07 pm

    I was an early beta tester … well … sort of … played with the app for about 30 minutes three times and did not like it. Removed it from my laptop and never looked back. A buddy of mine has kept up with it and thinks it totally sucks. He looks at it for competitive info.

    If it is not browser base … I am afraid it is not very interesting to me.

  9. Hornswaggled

    October 1st, 2007 at 4:16 pm

    I agree with Ira and Fabian. I tried to use this thing a few times and it never really grabbed my attention. I have not removed it but have not used it for months and I’m sure the version I have on my lappy is old and probably not supported.

    Give them credit though, they really took advantage of the exclusivity as far as exposure and publicity go.

  10. Al

    October 1st, 2007 at 4:21 pm

    Same here. Gave it a try, was bored after 15 mins, nothing to watch, client was too buggy to use and uninstalled shortly after.

  11. Blake Brannon

    October 1st, 2007 at 4:29 pm

    Unless they picked up some better content. I’m not even going to bother downloading the new version.

  12. Dan

    October 1st, 2007 at 5:24 pm

    Honestly, many of you sound pretty petty. You say you follow the tech industry and respect risk takers and “fast-failures” and yet you seem pretty quick to write off people who are actually doing just that, not just spending their days observing others. I was also an early beta user, and had lots of problems. But you know what - the new version is a huge improvement. Lower CPU usage, lots of content, cool UI….have you even tried it? Sure, it still needs a ton of work….but this is an ambitious project. I for one am cheering them on. Who among you can think independently?

  13. Generic Guy

    October 1st, 2007 at 5:32 pm

    Well, after independently testing this thing for a while I’ve independently decided I don’t have any use for it so I’ve independently uninstalled it.

  14. jccalhoun

    October 1st, 2007 at 5:38 pm

    I was watching Lexx and Babylon 5 on it but they dont have all the episodes! They are missing random episodes in the middle of storylines. Until they get all the episodes of any given series then there’s not much point.

  15. mathew

    October 1st, 2007 at 6:24 pm

    I’m not interested because it’s infested with DRM.

    That’s not petty, look at the trend in the music world.

  16. A

    October 1st, 2007 at 6:27 pm

    Content still is not good. So I still don’t see what the fuss is about.

  17. former NC beauty queen

    October 1st, 2007 at 6:47 pm

    Sometimes I sit down to watch some TV and there is nothing good on. But still, I think TV technology has good potential. Joost is the same way; it’s the only thing that makes sense for mass internet TV broadcasting. In conclusion, I would like to see world peace in the Iraq.

  18. Hype kills startups

    October 1st, 2007 at 6:54 pm

    “HYPE “is most dangerous word for every startups!

    It’s bad luck
    It’s Jinx
    It’s commercial failure
    It’s next Enron
    It’s startup failure
    It’s next titanic
    It’s failure

    Hype destroys you and your company. Never give PR and tell about hype product.

    P.S. Don’t be stupid….

  19. bfd

    October 1st, 2007 at 7:03 pm

    I did a beta test of Joost a few months ago. I was no impressed AT ALL. The interface is very weak. The content sucks. There are a lot of bugs (I do understand this is a beta product, so hopefully it will get better).

  20. Never use "Hype" in your startup

    October 1st, 2007 at 7:09 pm

    Advice for Entrepreneurs:

    You shouldn’t never give any journalists right to print “Hype”. Hype is a startup suicide, risky, and dangerous to economy. Here’s one example startup suicides

    truemors.com
    Mylivesearch.com
    Joost.com

    Next is
    Cuill.com
    powerset.com

    Remember don’t take wrong path to startup…

  21. phenom

    October 1st, 2007 at 8:18 pm

    Why so much of fuzz.
    http://vidsonly.blogspot.com

  22. Matt_

    October 1st, 2007 at 8:31 pm

    Im actuly glad that Joost launched without much Hype today becuse it meant the service wasnt overwhelmed by new users and the service still has a way to go before its out of beta .

  23. Jack

    October 2nd, 2007 at 1:26 am

    I checked out Adobe Media Player yesterday and, provided Adobe don’t do something stupid with it, Joost are sunk.

  24. El Honathan

    October 2nd, 2007 at 2:31 am

    I tested Joost and it was lame. Not-browser based, WMV with a Flash interface. And that was ok but nothing innovative. - video quality average (not sure they encoding the content optimally) and the content on Joost was worse than the Shopping Channel. It is all hype and no substance.

    I wish them all the best and now that they have been kicked off the Board at Skype by Ebay maybe they have more time to put some thought into their Joost product.

  25. Carl

    October 2nd, 2007 at 5:33 am

    Some of these posts reach a new level of lameness.

    Joost *is* browser based - it is a XUL application running on top of the Mozilla/firefox engine. Yes, you need to download something but what did you expect for something that needs access to your filesystem?

    And for those complaining about the content, why don’t you try to cut some content deals?

  26. ifyouwillit

    October 2nd, 2007 at 11:37 am

    Now I am excited!!! http://aliya05.blogspot.com/20.....-real.html

  27. decoder

    October 2nd, 2007 at 4:38 pm

    The platform itself is very interesting. As far I know is based on the same principles which made Skype and Torrent so cool (p2p). So… As a show is popular you will get great bandwidth thus great quality.

    The guys behind this project are the guys behind kazaa and skype. They usually make the things working and later sale to the big players. You cannot compare the crappy quality of YouTube or any Adobe/Flash Player content with the quality of Jost.

  28. dude d

    October 2nd, 2007 at 4:44 pm

    Oops! The guys from Facebook are all around us. I call that a Hype

  29. UV

    October 3rd, 2007 at 2:42 am

    Talking about teh need to download an application… did you see dnastream TV? just like Joost.. but with no download…

  30. UV

    October 3rd, 2007 at 2:43 am

    Talking about the need to download an application… did you see dnastream TV? just like Joost.. but with no download…

    http://www.dnastream.tv/

  31. Dario Cukier

    October 3rd, 2007 at 5:00 am

    Don’t dismiss these guys. I was equally skeptic when Skype launched. I guess the make-or-break point will be when they sign deals with hardware manufacturers for a Joost TV device (they probably already have)

  32. David Nordstedt

    October 3rd, 2007 at 8:17 am

    I was initially not too impressed when I tried it earlier this year. But then again, it was only alpha or beta so it is what it is. It will get better and has improved much since then.

    The concept and technologies they are using are the interesting part to look at. Using XUL, along with bittorrent style streaming/sharing, and the API for third parties to write their own plugins is pretty awesome.

    The download is required because of the environment they want everyone to buy into. It is not only an interface to the video and music, but also a place to run plugins like chat windows, RSS feeds, and even a web browser.

    I really see this as a prototype for the next generation home entertainment system. Imagine this screen filling your entire living room wall and being your viewpoint into everything online. Well, that’s my dream anyway :-)

  33. Thomas

    October 3rd, 2007 at 8:44 am

    Woot! TV available in yet another place where I won’t watch it.

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