Joost Sucks
A Review by John C. Dvorak
Yahoo blogger Robin Raskin can’t be serious with this review of Joost. Just listen to this analysis from Raskin: “Joost will let you do some very cool things like watch a show and rate it or chat about it.” Holy crap Batman, sign me up!! You can watch!? You can chat!?! How novel!
This fawning, nee pathetic, commentary just gets worse and totally ignores the dark side of the whole deal which is apparently individually targeted ads. How do they do that? Track you like a dog, that’s how.
So I got an invite to Joost (hard to come by) and I checked it out. Two words: It stinks. That simple fact seems to be ignored by all the reviewers.
Oh the technology looks cool enough, but so what? The only content is infomercials for last-gen rock bands with emphasis on Green Day and it’s Hitler Youth-style concerts. There is also some snide punk doing a talk show for kids “who don’t like adults telling them what to watch.” He emphasizes that point incessantly between glances at someone off camera who I assume to be his Dad. And the rest of the programming, if you can call it that, is worse.
Joost also sits in the toolbar and you’ll be doing something else when a mysterious T-Mobile commercial is suddenly heard in the background and Joost activates as a background task. How nice. Nice if you like to be annoyed that is.
These sorts of IPTV initiatives are not about technology, but about content. The founders of Joost are the guys who did Kazaa and Skype. Neither of these things were products or ideas where content was an issue. Kazaa users were trading stuff and with Skype people chat with each other. Joost is about the content not the technology something these guys and Raskin don’t seem to get. They’d better get it soon or this will Joost be a memory.
Want to get a Joost account? Pester them at www.joost.com. Good luck.
And don’t waste time getting a Joost account if you prefer to use Linux or OS X. They’re not doing any development for either platform.
“Joost also sits in the toolbar and you’ll be doing something else when a mysterious T-Mobile commercial is suddenly heard in the background and Joost activates as a background task. How nice. Nice if you like to be annoyed that is.”
So Joost is adware?!
1. “And don’t waste time getting a Joost account if you prefer to use Linux or OS X. They’re not doing any development for either platform.”
It sounds like they’re doing those platforms a favor.
Shucks, I never even got a chance to try, and John kills it. I applied for beta this morning, all I got was a “we will consider your request”.
Looks like for Internet TV I’ll have to look into options.
Who’s doing I-TV and happy about it? No, Comcast / local cable co. doesn’t count….
Hey Joost, most people have televisions.
i thought joost was to watch already existing tv shows, like lost or 24 or whatever the cool kids are watching these days. i didn’t know it was this kind of garbage, if/when my invite comes, i’ll probably ignore cause of this…
There may be some sort of hope that they’ll re-distro other material. But I’m guessing it’s a long ways off. The fact is this thing sounds better on paper. Normally I don’t wait around to blast beta software but reading Raskins weird review forced me to take action. I think she dry-labbed the review.
8. “Joost is still a work in progress, and so far, I’m impressed.”
Impressed about what? The “very limited content” or the ads pushed to your desktop every hour? I’m curious.
bah – gimme a internet connection & a puter
with torrents & a web camera I could make my own version of “content”
dvorak is just pissed because they wont put his show on the joost network. they don’t do anything for him, he slams them back.
very sophisticated john, very sophisticated.
Honestly, complaining about the content of an IPTV program that is practically still in pre-beta seems a bit unfair John. You said yourself the beta invite was hard to get. For the moment I dont think its about the content. Its about the technology – which, in your own words, is “looks cool”.
I haven’t tried Joost. But I do think innovative choice of Technology is needed for a good IPTV service. I’m interested to know how Joost reportedly does p2p to enable more viewers to view the same content at the same time. In principle if people upload as much as they download, a good p2p video streaming technology could enable an unlimited amount of viewers watch the same video stream.
And I wonder how they differentiate live content from on-demand content. I guess that with a god platform, that one could get live and on-demand content from many tv channels.
Is it HD?
I have an account, and besides the lack of content it seems to be a great platform. And about the ads: I just close it when I am not watching.
I haven’t got a look at Joost yet, but I don’t think you can put it down based on the fact that it has content that you find crappy (Green Day is a pretty hot band right now despite the fact that they are “last-gen”). There’s a reason why they are in an invite-only mode and part of that reason is that they don’t have much content yet.
On the other side, if the ads really are that bad, then it is reason enough to say it stinks.
You have to admit, the creators have a pretty good track record when it comes to disruptive technologies. You might not be happy with the content now, but as soon as they enlist one or more of the major networks, that’s likely to change.
John I think you are being a little too critical for what is is essentially a technology beta and the reason that there’s a bunch of content that appealed to young men is because they are the ones that are the “lost” demographic and most likely to participate in a beta .
You should give the platform another chance and have a look at the documentaires from Off The fence (they appeal to me better) and have some of the best encoded video on the platform .I suspect the content from the big players like NBC,Viacom ect will be on Joost when the officially launch
There’s only 3 advertisers on the beta Wrigley’s ,T Mobile and Maybelline so they are not really targeting …..yet .
One beta tester in Singapore was getting Chewing Gum commercials
The ads playing when the client is minimized to the tray is a bug so please send a bug report in about that and any other concerns you have .The developers dont want to annoy you …
http://static.theveniceproject.com/videos/blog-hw1.mov
As for Jouno’s who are fawning over Joost because of its pedigree are delusional .Im sure at this point I think the developers would rather have constructive criticism and not Just Its stinks …
When it comes to targeted advertising I would rather be marketed to than marketed at and the metrics IPTV can provide is more valuble to marketers .
I have to say your post is short sighted rubbish and shows a profound lack of understanding about the long tail and demand.
But Joost wont cater exclusively to the video long tail, it will be main stream.
Joost has put together a platform that works incredibly well, even on my overburdened just about to be upgraded computer.
Content? its in very limited Beta – they are putting the content pieces together as we speak and quality content will come, I´m sure of this. Look who´s behind Joost. If you were a content promoter with dwindling and fractured markets for your products would you not take an approach from Joost seriously?
If my household is anything to go by, Joost is a massive hit, its accessible, easy to use and even for the biggest technophobe it just works.
Regards
Fraser Cairns – Jooster
“And don’t waste time getting a Joost account if you prefer to use Linux or OS X. They’re not doing any development for either platform.
Comment by moss — 1/29/2007 @ 12:38 pm”
Not true now you are just speculating
this is from the Joost FAQ
Does Joost™ work on the Mac or Linux?
We’re working hard on a native Macintosh version and expect it to be available in the next few months. Currently the application works fine under Bootcamp but not under Parallels; it needs to access the graphics processing unit (GPU) for some of its operations, and Parallels does not support that at the moment.
A Linux version is also in the works.
As a programmer, I can tell you that a Beta and the finished product will be exactly the same – minus the bugs.
John never mentioned his dislike because of a bug, but on the actual use.
If he says it stinks, I believe him. Of course I will try it someday, and make my own opinion, but his review means that it won’t be anytime soon. Too bad, i was all hyped up about and submitted for the beta.
I don’t think it’s because they won’t broadcast his show, John is way above all that.
Gee… it’s too bad my name is being sullied. 🙂 Hopefully this service will get better with time if Skype markets it properly.
we’ll see
Kazaa stinked compared to eMule and BitTorrent.
Skype stinks compared to SIP.
Joost probably will stink compared to other VOD and IPTV systems.
Though somehow the Danish and the Norwegian guys behind these closed, adware, monopolistic, proprietary somehow get the millions of users to install and sometimes use their software and that brings the billions.
First John Whines on TWiT that he and Patrick Still don’t have a Joost Account. Now someone took time to send John an Evite to join Joost. Than writes on dvorak.org/blog/ and Whine about it declaring IT Stinks. Did Jay Sherman has Awoken from the grave here??
First of all, I haven’t asked anyone to put anything I do on Joost, so how can I be pissed about their refusal? Grow up.
Secondly I generally never attack a beta program and yes it is unfair. But I was sickened by all the fawning “greatest thing since sliced bread” reviews and had to say something. Jumping for joy just because something exists and pre-promoting it like these boosters are doing is crap since the product at this stage is indeed crummy. I’m just telling it like it is. When it changes for the better I’ll sing its praises. But I’m not going to do it without a good reason. Why are other people falling all over themselves is what I’m wondering.
a german Blog
http://joerg.rapidspace.de/WBB/wordpress/
I’m a beta tester also. John the content will come. Did you notice how awesome it looks full season and its all screaming. Netflixs should license this technology for screaming movies. You may not like Greenday the band but the screaming of that concert dvd looked great and there was no pausing for buffering.
John look passed the bugs and the content and see the technology
I have been BETA tester Joost for a couple of weeks now and I have to agree with John. It stinks.
There is little content, the video quality is marginal at best and the interface is absolutely random pointless.
Perhaps they’ll get things on the technology side working better but without premium content Joost my be more of an advertising delivery platform than a content delivery platform.
My broadband provider (shaw.ca) limits my bandwidth to 60 GB per month. How many hours of Joost is that?
Dude, I love joost. I disagree with you, john. Right now, it is about the technology…. the word BETA ring a bell? They are still trying to work out the kinks. Its not like they’re just going to release this to world in its current condition. As a matter of fact, i”m sure that by the time it comes out of beta it’ll have much better content. When its out of beta, I think, that’s when it’ll be about the content. But its in beta right now so they can test the technology.
#28. “First of all, I haven’t asked anyone to put anything I do on Joost, so how can I be pissed about their refusal? Grow up.”
The common assertion that people cannot be critical of something or someone without having a personal ax to grind is damn tedious, if you don’t mind me saying so. It reminds me of the comments on TWiT. Everyone who disliked Adam Curry’s appearance on TWiT were ‘jealous’ of him.
‘grow up’ is the proper response.