Jooce, the Flash-based web desktop we covered in August with an unfortunate name (Joost, anyone?) , has opened its doors for business.
The Parisian development team behind Jooce seeks to provide the millions of people who use internet cafes everyday with a place to organize, access, and share their files online. The idea is to provide, through the browser, a desktop experience akin to that of a normal operating system, but for people who don’t possess or have access to their own computers.
Jooce not only provides cafe visitors (or anyone else, for that matter) with a place to manage their files; it serves as an area to run customized applications as well. An instant messaging program for AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo comes pre-installed, but Jooce will also eventually bring in third-party widgets from Widgetbox and elsewhere through an API. The Jooce team itself is currently developing an email client to complement its instant messaging capabilities.
There’s also a place called Jooce Top where you can make files available to all other Jooce users (with privacy settings coming in later versions). Unfortunately, this sharing and “social networking” functionality is quite primitive and doesn’t yet match the functionality of Ajax-based competitor Wixi.
There’s no cost to use Jooce and storage is unlimited, but expect to see advertisements appear in novel forms such as branded themes and interactive animations. The company may also begin providing a premium version stripped of advertisements.
The company has focused their marketing efforts on getting Jooce on kiosks and internet cafes. It has signed deals with Indian telecoms and internet service providers to spread Jooce to their user bases and install it on thousands of internet kiosks. It has also inked a deal with Milk, the biggest chain of internet cafes in France.
For other WebOS competitors, see Goowy, G.ho.st, DesktopTwo and YouOS.
people actually use cybercafe’s?
“people actually use cybercafe’s?”
Ditto, how lame.
I always wondered why some startup doesn’t take an open source flash based VNC client
http://www.google.com/search?q.....pen+source
Then do a bunch of virtual /home directories on an ubuntu box? You know like Plesk and Ensim do?
Then people could access the desktop via the flash VNC to the chroot jailed /home like in /home/chrootjail/username
That way people could have access to a REAL operating system via the web and not just javascript and AJAX crap. THAT would be a winning idea! BTW, if you take it, I am looking for a better side job in SF in June/July so hire me as a dev.
If there’s a market for it, i say go for it!
http://www.whatshottoday.com
web desktops have been tried many times before. Its a great Idea, I cant figure out why its never caught on. webOS.com in 99 for example had one that was built on java applets.
For those that don’t know a chroot jail is when the entire operating system is copied for each user and they all share the kernel. Kind of like virtualization, but they all share the kernel. VNCs can be shared to chroot environments on 1 instance of X.
man chroot
Oh, oh, if you did my idea, you could also install wine in the chroot /home dir for each user and let them use ware….. Windows.
BTW, as for the original topic, I have seen about 50 of these in the past 2-3 years. One more can’t hurt I guess.
Sheesh 1 and 2. There’s an entire world-full of people who either can’t afford their own computers or have little interest in owning one of their own. Not everyone on the planet is an affluent techno-obsessed techcrunch reader like yourselves.
Joost is pronounced ye-ost
Jooce is probably pronounced juicy or juice
Wow, are we really running out good names? Someone should come up with a social networking site specifically for domain names that you can’t pronounce and doesn’t make sense.
Despite all that, good luck to jooce. Their international offering is really amazing.
I am a Wixi user because I can share large videos with it. I like jooce design but don’t believe in webOS… And do not understand why we need another IM.in cybercafe!!
Now… is it just me or does anyone else see a fatal flaw in the concept?
As #7 correctly pointed out:
“Not everyone on the planet is an affluent techno-obsessed techcrunch reader like yourselves” this if ever is most certainly true for your average cybercafe visitor.
So how exactly is a concept like webOS which hasnt been able to gain any significant traction amongst the early-adopter-tech-junkie-crowd going to have an appeal to those people?
Social Networking for cybercafe visitors? Yeah great theese ppl (for whichever reasons) dont own a pc (or at at least no internet connection). What makes you think theyre gonna spend much time & effort building their profile pages and socialising online?
Filesharing for cybercafe visitors? Now which files exactly would that be?
Obviously im missing something, anybody able/care to explain to me how this is gonna work?
Personally I love the look of their products and think it has some value (I am singing up today to try it).
Some of you need to really get out of your secluded apt and do some traveling. Cybercafe’s are a pretty frequent affair outside of the U.S.
I could see how something like this could come in handy for business travelers as well.
Somethjing worth noticing. I believe Jooce is using open source flash server RED5
The unlimited storage sounds nice.
No thanks, I use MS GetALife 2.2b!
@David Mackey Upload is limited to 100Mb per file -(
I’ve tried Jooce and other of these web desktops, and the one that I found reliable is G.ho.st.
Tried to sign up, but as soon as the account is created and I loocked in it starts loading and always gets stock.
I would really love to try it.
I signed up for a Jooce account and it was great.
However, as soon as I logged off, I was unable to get back on.
It appears to hang at “connecting.” Oh, well. I’m sure they will get it fixed.
Jooce is not really a webOS but rather an Internet storage accessible from any computer.
On this issue, you can read this article: http://www.thenetips.com/2008/.....-internet/