speak.to

It looks like TV is the thing this year. After announcements from Apple and NetFlix about high-quality online video, we now have Joost. Formerly known as The Venice Project, and announced on the 16th of January, Joost aims to revolutionize television by delivering it for free in a new way on the Internet.

Now in beta testing, Joost streams television using a secure peer-to-peer client that protects the content. It’s supported by advertising which is much less frequent than network television and usually with ads that are much shorter. I'm testing Joost using a 700 kbps DSL connection and it performs very well. It begins streaming almost immediately and only rarely pauses to catch-up.

Full-screen quality is good. Currently most of the content is much lower in quality than a good DivX-encoded movie; but some of the content, such as the Off The Fence production Snakes, shows great quality that looks nearly as good as a DVD.

The user interface is translucent and superimposed over the screen to provide controls while viewing which disappear when you stop using them. Overall, the unique interface is still something of a work in progress, but it’s well designed and effective. Joost is organized in Channels which are basically playlists of related programs. The channels, along with lists and descriptions of the channel content, can be browsed in typical on-screen program-guide fashion. Search is available right on the main control, and the results can be played like a custom channel. It’s possible to skip to any program, but you must watch in real time from the beginning before being able to fast-forward and rewind through the program (though there are plans to remove this restriction). There is a My Joost area with a variety of plugins and social features such as Chat and IM functions, RSS feeds, and others which are easy to open and close or set to persist anywhere on the screen.

The content available on Joost is still limited, but it’s easy to see how its audience could quickly grow to a size that would be very attractive to advertisers and content owners. Joost is only available now on Windows, but there are plans for other platforms like the Mac and Linux, and there’s no reason why there couldn’t even be a set-top-box version. Hopefully, future versions could provide scaleable quality and allow delivery of high-def content on faster connections. The principal creators of Joost also created Kazaa, and Skype which recently sold to eBay for 2.6 billion dollars. These guys clearly know what they’re doing. I have no doubt that Joost will be a success; and that studios, networks, advertisers, and other media companies will be scrambling to catch up--or get on board.

Reply to this story or use the Contact form to request an invitation to the beta.

Take a look at this CBS News interview of David Clark from Joost.