Joost is one step away from a wide release. Anyone have thoughts on it? | Hacker News Reader

Joost is one step away from a wide release. Anyone have thoughts on it?

joost.com

4 pointsReadmore15 comments

honestly it sucks.

specifically, the programming (types of shows available) sucks.

A big mistake they've made so far is to not open it up to whoever wants to broadcast. The resulting content is third-rate. They need to open it up to anyone who wants to stream content to make things interesting.

I couldn't agree more. Merely providing a new interaction and distribution framework isn't enough to revolutionize television. I'm not convinced on 100% user-submitted content, but Joost's current reliance on the big TV networks and production bigwigs for content is -- and has proven to be -- problematic.

I still give Joost a lot of credit for their work, but their solution, like TiVo, YouTube, and, to a certain extent, Netflix is only an evolutionary step in the bigger picture.

For now.

That is a very interesting idea. User-driven broadcasts would have to compete in the "P2P marketplace".

Consider this scenario. Joost is P2P. If I start my own Joost broadcast, I notify my peers of its existence. Those people who tune to my channel then transmit a notification to their peers, with the possibility of their rebroadcasting it.

There would have to be some smoothing out of the protocol, but it could work. It would basically be P2P realtime YouTube.

But now you have to ask yourself a few more questions:

- Channel Life: having a buttload of Joost channels that aren't well-maintained with new content is as annoying as amassing RSS feeds that are updated sporadically, sometimes month-to-month (which is why I don't like the idea of "channels," alas the folks at Joost do)

- Attention Deficit: Joost ultimately aims to replace television. Could you realistically picture yourself watching YouTube clips separated into content creator channels for more than 30 minutes?

- Community: One of Joost's best features is the interactive chat that brings content communities closer together. How does this happen with highly fragmented user content?

These are just some of the things that immediately come to mind. I'm not saying that a Joost P2P TV system doesn't make sense, it just requires a lot of consideration.

Let them roll out Joost as planned, and build a following (assuming that Joost is interesting). Then, watch them release a patch, which enables Joost to optionally function as I described. It would come at marginal cost to Joost.

Some people will turn on the feature and experiment with it. Should somebody manage to put together an interesting channel, then it will spread throughout the system. For example, Joost could be the platform that drives Justin.tv.

I wasn't really referring to Joost's viability as a P2P system -- it already is.

I was more along the lines of addressing the viability of building a compelling user-content community -- it's a lot harder than it may sound, especially when you think about how would Joost's primary features co-exist with multitudes of relatively "shallow" content.

If you follow Cringley you might have already heard about NeoKast, they are basically trying to do just that. Create a P2P tech for user streamed TV. It could be huge if it has a unified interface and isn't regulated to embedded players on websites.

Good article here: Wii and Joost the perfect match:

http://www.wiisquid.com/2007/04/04/wii-and-joost-the-perfect-match/

I also have invites jonathan.markwell at gmail if you want one.

I'm excited to take a look at Joost and see how it's going to work out. Has anyone tried it? Do you have any insights into if it's the 'next big thing' in online TV?

I don't think ISPs are very happy right now.

Word.

looks super cool. the ad is quite nice. and done by the founders of skype and kaaza (!) i predict that within 10 months it'll sell for $10 billion to microsoft. there, i said it!

I've got a few invites. If you want one, astonm at gmail.com.

invite me!

Ditto!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com