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Is Joost headed for the deadpool?

Started by mathewi · 8 months ago

It’s been awhile since I wrote about Joost, but the sudden departure this week of the company’s chief technology officer — which started out amicably and then became a firing — made me want to take a look at the company again. Not that long ago, Jo ... Continue reading »

12 comments

  • mark 'rizzn' hopkins

    8 months ago

    Heya.

    I actually subscribe to the Joost blog. They add tons of content on a near-daily basis. Most of it is nominally interesting (most of it should have been added at launch, most of it isn't yet on Hulu), but very few shows have much geek cred (at least that I've seen), or if they have it, they haven't come out on slow news days.

    That said, I'm not a Joost user. I'd love to be, because I much prefer a standalone utility I could run on a box made for my TV than something in a web page. Unfortunately, I can't cheaply make a box that fits the dumb system requirements of Joost. Even my brand spankin' new Dell laptop is lacking something minor in the graphics card department preventing Joost from running properly.

    I want it to succeed. I don't think it will.
    reply
  • Mark Evans

    8 months ago

    I got an invite to the Joost beta, downloaded the software, and then did nothing with it. Not sure why other than I get my video elsewhere. I do think, however, that the on-demand, online video market will gain more traction. The question is whether Joost will be around to be part of the action.
    reply
  • mathewi

    8 months ago

    Thanks, Mark -- to be fair, I haven't kept up with Joost's blog, so maybe
    there's more going on there than I'm giving them credit for. But it does
    sort of feel as though they have lost some momentum. I wondered even in the
    beginning whether a dedicated TV-style app was the way to go, and I'm
    wondering it even more now.
    reply
  • MG Siegler

    8 months ago

    As a fan of Joost since the get go I fear you may be right - they've simply failed to garner much buzz beyond their initial pre-launch hype (which as you well know was considerable). If only they could find a way onto a device like the Apple TV...
    reply
  • Matt Harwood

    8 months ago

    As with the others, it would certainly be a shame to see Joost disappear. I use it regularly, and have talked about it regularly, too. See a recent post: http://socialsoul.co.uk/2008/01/10/club-music-o...

    Making it on to a living-room appliance would certainly help. Maybe that slingbox of tricks? I can't say if it would work as I've never used slingbox.

    It seems no marketing has been done since launch - which directly contrasts with the owner's other (previous) child, Skype. Here in the UK, I always see "mainstream users" knowing what Skype is, and mostly using it. That hasn't happened with Joost - maybe because of that lack of partnerships.

    Fingers crossed. Keep up the great work, Mathew!
    reply
  • mathewi

    8 months ago

    Thanks for the comment, Matt. Maybe getting onto Apple TV or the Wii or
    something like that might help, but I'm still not convinced. I have to say
    I'm starting to wonder whether Joost isn't a solution in search of a
    problem.
    reply
  • anonymous

    8 months ago

    I met Dirk-Willem van Gulik once and saw him speak at a conference on another occasion, You know he is also President of the Apache (server) foundation. His knowledge and intelligence is really impressive. I think we will all snigger at Joost for losing a guy like this. I bet that the guys over at the BBC cannot believe their luck. If I was Joost I'd cut my losses and die real soon. Joost does not need a box, neither does YouTube. YouTube has content... and Joost?
    reply
  • Rob Hyndman

    8 months ago

    I think there's a pretty short hop from this issue to Joe Duck's post about video's main problem being that it's **boring**.

    http://joeduck.com/2008/01/18/the-video-revolut...
    reply
  • mathewi

    8 months ago

    Yeah, I think Joe hit on something there. I often feel the same. Maybe if
    Joost did a better job of pointing you towards the good stuff, but I didn't
    find it was very good at that at all.
    reply
  • webomatica

    8 months ago

    I just read this post and fired up Joost to see if they got any new content recently. The program tried to upgrade itself and then relaunched. Then it said the upgrade server was down and I should try to download the program manually. I don't have time for this right now.

    Meanwhile, today I was thinking about stopping by the Apple Store and picking up an Apple TV.
    reply
  • mathewi

    8 months ago

    That kind of says it all, doesn't it :-)
    reply
  • Matt Hendry

    8 months ago

    Even if Joost seems like its on the rails at least people are talking about it again and theres nothing like Internet Buzz to increase viewers .

    Joost should really promote their recent addition of Star Trek to the platform to capitalize on this "publicity".
    reply

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