I've heard so much about Joost. Some of it can only be described as hyperbolic crap, some of it is intriguing opinion. I'm a little late to the party, but with the release of Joost 0.9 I thought I'd give it a try.
To sum it up, it's a great application, with a slick interface and some nice social features, but it's badly let down by its content. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The download, install, and sign-in process are all pretty standard. Happily, 0.9 has fixed the Vista incompatibilities found in previous versions, so things should even run smoothly on Microsoft's latest operating system. Once you've logged into Joost, you get a brief intro video which teases you with the content that's available on the "network". This all sounds rather good: there's a games channel, a manga channel, a football (soccer if you're in the US) channel, and many more - including a Guinness World Records TV channel.
The interface is slick too. There's a "My Channels" icon on the left of the screen, and "My Joost" on the right. Channels brings up, predictably, a list of available channels, while Joost brings up Joost's "widgets". These appear to be very similar to the Dashboard widgets in Mac OS X, or Konfabulator, or Vista's Sidebar. They include an RSS news reader, clock, chat channels (a nice touch; chat with like-minded viewers who are watching the same thing) and notice boards. There's always a "close" button in the top right (which looks a bit like a face with a handlebar moustache), and the playback controls, channel info, and search box sit at the bottom of your screen.
It all looks quite nice. The loading animation is a sort of tri-kryptonite icon (red, blue, and green) which spins around nicely, and looks suitably original. Hitting the standby button shrinks the picture down into a tiny dot a the centre of the screen, like an old cathode-ray TV; it's a nice touch. Video quality is, again, quite nice. It looks a bit blocky close up, at full-screen on a 1680x1050 display, like the one I'm sitting in front of now. To be honest, certain videos look a bit blocky in a window that takes up one quarter of the previously mentioned screen. But it's okay: you'd have to describe the video quality as "acceptable". Interestingly, the short Vodafone adverts that appear between "shows" are of a much higher quality than most of the Joost content.
I'm not sure how much of my bandwidth Joost is consuming; it's not really an issue for me as I'm not using a metered connection. I was still able to download at high speed, surf the 'net, and do everything else I'm accustomed to whilst watching Joost, with no appreciable disruption in service. I think the quality might have dipped, but I'm not certain. Regardless, that's quite impressive.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Doug Moore
Updated Software today. Lots of New Content!
2 - Eugenia
Bandwidth with Joost can be a problem. I blogged about this.
Please remove the space between the words "blog" and "some" to get the full URL above, beause Blogcritics.org erroneously blocks any comments with the full word together. Admin, if you read this, please remove the word "blog some" from the spam list, it is a legitimate blogger site.
BTW, Joost uses h.264 which is a good way to save bandwidth, however, it seems that ABC is way ahead of Joost in the quality department. Just 2 days ago they rolled out their HD-like online content (when using the "fullscreen" option on their Flash-based player) and quality is amazing.
[I made your link active and have asked the higher powers to remove that word from the stoplist. Comments Editor]
3 - Jigsaw hc
I agree. The content needs some improvements, but over all it has a lot of potential.
4 - Anders
just my words, I signed up yesterday. but after having spend an hour playing with Joost I tuned it off, there was noting I wanted to see, the content is worse than shit.
Well.... back to "The Pirate Bay" !!!
5 - joost invite?
if you are on joost, could you fire me an invite? [Personal contact info deleted] ty!
6 - timothy
honestly, i don't know if joost will end up making it, as there is so much competition sprouting up. reeltime.com and netflix.com both offer similar streaming services and they seem to have a better selection of content. i believe netflix is still in closed beta testing, but reeltime is open beta.
7 - Alex
ya actually I'm interested in finding out more about this too (even if the content is crap) so shoot me an invite too if you don't mind [Personal contact info deleted]
8 - Intelligent
Your statement:
"I've heard so much about Joost. Some of it can only be described as hyperbolic crap, some of it is intriguing opinion. I'm a little late to the party, but with the release of Joost 0.9 I thought I'd give it a try.
To sum it up, it's a great application, with a slick interface and some nice social features, but it's badly let down by its content. But I'm getting ahead of myself."
Considering it is still in beta form and to get access to this data you need to be invited. Since you failed to mention that, one can only assume you are using someone else's beta or got a cracked altered copy off a torrent.
Either way, both whether cracked beta or normal beta, it is all still beta. The things you compare it to are absurd. Your problem is you only have Media Center as your main online tv reference. Ever heard of MLB.tv ? If that is doing as well as it is, I believe so will Joost. You should give the product more research in comparison to online-only competition before you start comparing it to just finalized desktop software already available.
9 - J Paul
If anyone could send me an invite, I would highly appreciate it :) I am trying to get in there for month now... Thank you [Personal contact info deleted]
10 - Jure22
Wow - ChooseAndWatch.com has over 300 channels - including XXX channels
Thanks mate :)
11 - Yo
Yo, they're just getting started.
in version 0.8 beta, they had even less content.
obviously, they're adding content.
Instead of evaluation one version, you should be evaluating progress.
12 - Matt
I have 5 invites to give out. [Personal contact info deleted]
13 - wingerz
The National Geographic content is pretty good, and Viacom will provide a lot of excellent content. I think Joost has a lot of potential.
14 - Abisola F
Nice review. I'd love to try it myself, would love you to pop me an invite if you get round to it. [Personal contact info deleted]
15 - Brent
I agree the content is weak right now, but it will get better. Joost is very promising
16 - Brian Kirk
I've been using Joost for a few versions now, and while I agree with you that its content is poor, the quantity and quality of content has increased tenfold.
Compared to last version, Joost picked up Comedy Central (including the entire season of the now defunct, but always funny "Stella"), MTV, VH1, among others. And keep in mind these are all just 'betas' of the content you are going to see on these channels.
Give it a chance. Even Apple had problems convincing movie studios to offer downloads. And look at all the content they have now.
Everyone wants a jump on YouTube, and Joost offers great design, decent quality, and an interesting business model. And I doubt they're done pulling ideas out of their sleeve.
17 - phoenix
Let me get this straight though - and I'm having a lot of the same hangups as well with Joost - it's all about the content: but you're essentially saying the huge problem with Joost is that you don't find the content interesting or stimulating enough?
I agree, wholeheartedly, but I hardly think that the service has a significant problem when I MYSELF don't happen to like what's on. I wish Joost's offerings would branch out a bit as well, but there's already a great deal of content, and if it just doesn't suit me, then well...that's more MY problem than a critical flaw with the service, isn't it? I mean yes - Joost needs to expand their offerings to more programs and more channels, and more DIFFERENT channels instead of a lot of repeating channels, but in the end, it sounds more like you have a personal problem with none of the content entertaining YOU than a problem with Joost, the idea, or the service at all.
18 - Habitaquo
I am still waiting on my invite.
19 - Ogi
I would really like a company like Joost to make it. The whole invitation part reminds me of Google, so maybe they are the guys behind this new site (whoknows).
The reason I am writing is for an invitation. [Personal contact info deleted]
20 - networkexec
Quit whining. A little birdie told me deals with several major networks are in the works. The thing isn't even public yet, expect big things then.
21 - Insomn3ak
Has anyone else seen the Comedy Central content on Joost? Talk about lame... it seems like they're using shows that didn't make the cut for the real cable channel.
I hope it gets better. The app IS very slick.
22 - Luis
Just be glad that they got rid of the Paris Hilton channel
23 - Daniel Woolstencroft
Thanks for the comments everyone.
@Intelligent - that's an interesting assumption to make. I was fortunate enough to get an invite a while back, but didn't bother installing Joost thanks to poor Vista support. And I guess you'll assume I'm pirating Vista because I don't explicitly state how to purchase it.
Like I said in the article: with more content, Joost could be great. It's nice to know that many people share that view, because hopefully Joost's developers will hear that message loud and clear: we like the product, but please just give us better content!
24 - JT
its a beta. you present it as if its a done deal. I've been a beta tester since the very early days. it has improved out of sight.
its the platform thats cool and the opportunities it brings. if you do a bit of research, you'll find Joost has signed a number of content deals including Viacom. in the backlash against YouTube in the media community I think you'll find joost does quite well.
25 - Ben Hamey
I agree but with the huge backing that Joost has, I doubt they will have issues getting more and diversified content - it is still beta and they would be checking the application and their servers function properly before loading it up with lots of content.