Joost, battling for relevance in the online tv world against Hulu and others, will soon no longer require users to download separate desktop software to access the service (its existing software is based on Xul). Instead users will be able to access Joost via a small browser plugin that will continue to use Joost’s P2P technology to distribute video among users quickly.
The service launched to considerable fanfare but has fallen off the radar as of late as the company has been plagued by a shortage of content and, well, users. And as the inertia of the online video business moves away from desktop clients and to the Web, it seems Joost has finally seen the writing on the wall and will launch an online video service of its own.
It’ll be interesting to see how it fares in an already crowded lineup of offerings headlined by Hulu, Amazon, and Fancast.
Update: Screenshots here.
Good riddance. The thing was slow.
Breaking? This news is months old.
More than anything what did Joost in is the lack of interesting content, not that it required a desktop app. Many of the features of the client were quite interesting and forward looking, but who cares about those if the shows aren’t any good.
I agree with Alan on this. Joost has a lot of amazing features, but very few good shows.
Hulu did not have as many features, but focused on getting quality shows. And it does not require a plugin.
I think most of are thinking the same thing … “DUH”.
Glad to see all the hype gone and hopefully this is the last we here of Joost.
I liked the Joost interface and experience. However the program ran slow and the content was lacking. I did get a chance to watch plenty of Iron Man Competitions though (really)!
If they can get the richness of the client into the plugin then it could be interesting.
http://www.whaturunning.com/
Amazing insight, please tell me where I can buy your product.
Well content is king without it no matter how great your technology/software/player etc.
But online video i and will remain a hype and a niche at most for another 5-10 years until a couple of things happen
1.Broadband bandwidth and speed increase ten fold while keeping prices at current or lower rates (economically won’t be viable otherwise)
2.Quality content is made available i.e if itis HD then it has to be true HD not crap shoot as is today
3.Merger between TV and Computer needs to be smooth and easy for the masses to use.
Will any of this happen possibly but will it be done fairly and be reasonably priced thatsto be seen.
I had high expectations from the pair who brought us Kazaa and Skype. But Joost didn’t leave up to these expectations. In their “school of experiences”, Joost’s founders knew how to create a great app from illegal contents (Kazaa). They didn’t know how to do so with the same studios whose contents they copyright they violated (Joost).
Shame, but I’m looking forward to see what will their next start-up be.
Stupid people. Had only they integrated well with the media center… I used to use it initially but it was a pain to use it from my vista media center. I had to give it up eventually.
This was one of the most frequently requested feature on their support forums and they never added it. too bad for them
The desktop client was a confusing mess. It wasn’t fun to use. Hulu has the model right-on, let’s see if Joost can even come close.
If it’s not Flash (i.e. the plugin that everyone has), I think this will be another failure. Look at Silverlight… even after all of the MS might and money, NBC dropped Silverlight after Olympics because more people have Flash.
So unless Joost is based on Flash, forget it.
NOT BREAKING
The only breaking will happen when you use the Beta :p
But to be honest I think Joost is moving in the right direction with a web based Joost
I’m glad to see that Joost is firing off the flare gun to get outside help!
Sorry, don’t follow. Why is this “breaking”?
To say Joost fell off the radar is an understatement! I think it was a hot item for all of about a week or two, when everyone and their brother wanted “joost invites”.
This is breaking? Are you resorting to Digg-style titles now? Try “amazing”, “leaked”, and “top 10″ too!
Horrible. Crashed FF on my mac.
these guys are clueless
THERE IS NO DANA
ONLY XUL !!!
As I posted over a year and a half ago–
“Future of television – I don’t think so.”
I could not not believe all of the hype from places like TechCrunch. Joost never made any sense. Trying to decide whether it was the download or lack of content that caused them problems when both sucked is silly.
Wasn’t this the company that raised so much cash they had no idea what to do with that they sponsored an IRL race car?
Its interesting – at the time all the journos (and many top bloggers) went wild because the story was so plausible – it pandered to the models everyone wanted to believe in, and the guys has sold a voice startup and thus they must know about Web TV, right?
And yet most anybody who understood Web TV (esp DRM’d content) was nervous about Joost’s model – we had built a simple rig at the time to prove IPTV was overblown (start here):
http://broadstu...-New-Media.html
and that sort of implied to us that Joost was unlikely to take off as it was built either.
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Prediction. Veoh buys Joost in 12 months time.
I remember when it first came out and i did a review of it
It was the hottest thing next to the opening of the iphone
its amazing how far it fell.
lol
The small browser plugin that permits uses to continue to utilize Joost’s P2P technology sounds extremely innovative.
Alvira Khan
Florida Atlantic University
FAU Alumna
um, their content sucked. Their business model sucked. Their user experience (e.g. having to download their media viewer) sucked.
Their story is what’s wrong with VC’s today. Overhyped company with bad business model + founders with prior success = wasted VC money