Back when Napster was nearing the end of its life as a pirates' bazaar, a few developers introduced KaZaA, a similar P2P application that turned out to be ripe for similar abuses, and which for a time was at the top of the illicit file-sharing world. When legal troubles came their way, the developers sold the application.
Two of the developers, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, went on to create Skype, an application that allows users to make non-emergency phone calls over the internet (voice over internet protocol, or VoIP). Unlike other VoIP applications, Skype was running on P2P software and was entirely decentralized. Skype did not suffer the same legal troubles as KaZaA had, and indeed the developers were able to sell Skype to eBay for a cool $2.6 billion in 2006.
It wasn't long before they used the money and momentum created by the Skype sale to start work on their next project. With their background, it shouldn't be a surprise that Zennström and Friis carried on creating P2P software, and in 2007 Joost debuted as a desktop application that carried safe, legal, professionally-produced video to the masses.
P2P technology is a natural fit for video distribution. Videos - especially high-quality ones - are big files that soak up a lot of bandwidth. If you're trying to host all the video from central servers, then you're going to spend a fortune. P2P allowed Joost to only distribute video to a small number of users at a time: once new videos were downloaded by users, the users themselves would help to distribute the video files to any other users who came along.
Last October, Joost was able to discontinue the desktop application and switch to a Flash-based player working in your browser - a newer, more convenient Joost. The rest of the site may operate through their servers, but when you watch video, other users are helping to securely deliver that safe content to you, and you're paying it forward to other users.
Then, in December, Joost became even more convenient as it empowered users to enjoy their content on the go with a free Joost application for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch.
And there's lots of content to enjoy. Joost enjoys partnerships with a variety of mainstream content providers, from Viacom to the NHL to Warner Bros., as well as indie music content. In May of last year, they boasted more than 7000 hours of videos (not all available in every country), and when they announced the new web-based Joost in October it was up to 8000 hours. Those 8000 hours were comprised of more than 46000 videos, more than half of which were TV shows and related content. The number of videos available in the US today is a little higher than that, and the number available globally is greater than 57000.
The videos are split into various genres and "channels" to make browsing easier, and they do make recommendations based on what you're watching at the moment and what's popular with other users, but the new Joost also emphasizes their social network, which at last count was not far from 10000 publicly visible users, as a way of discovering content you like.
Joost doesn't want you to have to start from scratch when finding people with whom to share your experience. On the one hand, they do have user-created groups for people with shared tastes, and you can easily check to see which of your email contacts is already on Joost. But there's another, more powerful way to make Joost an integral part of your daily social networking.
Their "Connect with Facebook" feature can connect your Joost and Facebook profiles in just two clicks. At your command, it imports your Facebook info and connects you with any friends of yours who use Joost, and at the same time allows you to send status updates based on your Joost activity to your Facebook Wall.
It's a notably more aggressive approach than simply allowing people to create profiles and expecting them to buddy up. And it may be a wise one: people often trust their friends and other peers to recommend content to them, so it may be that Joost will enjoy greater involvement from their watchers -and attract more of them - by tapping Facebook's massive user base of frequent visitors. And more users not only mean more ad revenue, but also more people helping to distribute video.
These simple ideas -- get people watching together, and let them share their bandwidth - seem to be working. So if you'd like a little help finding the best content, Joost might be just right.
Two of the developers, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, went on to create Skype, an application that allows users to make non-emergency phone calls over the internet (voice over internet protocol, or VoIP). Unlike other VoIP applications, Skype was running on P2P software and was entirely decentralized. Skype did not suffer the same legal troubles as KaZaA had, and indeed the developers were able to sell Skype to eBay for a cool $2.6 billion in 2006.
It wasn't long before they used the money and momentum created by the Skype sale to start work on their next project. With their background, it shouldn't be a surprise that Zennström and Friis carried on creating P2P software, and in 2007 Joost debuted as a desktop application that carried safe, legal, professionally-produced video to the masses.
P2P technology is a natural fit for video distribution. Videos - especially high-quality ones - are big files that soak up a lot of bandwidth. If you're trying to host all the video from central servers, then you're going to spend a fortune. P2P allowed Joost to only distribute video to a small number of users at a time: once new videos were downloaded by users, the users themselves would help to distribute the video files to any other users who came along.
Last October, Joost was able to discontinue the desktop application and switch to a Flash-based player working in your browser - a newer, more convenient Joost. The rest of the site may operate through their servers, but when you watch video, other users are helping to securely deliver that safe content to you, and you're paying it forward to other users.
Then, in December, Joost became even more convenient as it empowered users to enjoy their content on the go with a free Joost application for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch.
And there's lots of content to enjoy. Joost enjoys partnerships with a variety of mainstream content providers, from Viacom to the NHL to Warner Bros., as well as indie music content. In May of last year, they boasted more than 7000 hours of videos (not all available in every country), and when they announced the new web-based Joost in October it was up to 8000 hours. Those 8000 hours were comprised of more than 46000 videos, more than half of which were TV shows and related content. The number of videos available in the US today is a little higher than that, and the number available globally is greater than 57000.
The videos are split into various genres and "channels" to make browsing easier, and they do make recommendations based on what you're watching at the moment and what's popular with other users, but the new Joost also emphasizes their social network, which at last count was not far from 10000 publicly visible users, as a way of discovering content you like.
Joost doesn't want you to have to start from scratch when finding people with whom to share your experience. On the one hand, they do have user-created groups for people with shared tastes, and you can easily check to see which of your email contacts is already on Joost. But there's another, more powerful way to make Joost an integral part of your daily social networking.
Their "Connect with Facebook" feature can connect your Joost and Facebook profiles in just two clicks. At your command, it imports your Facebook info and connects you with any friends of yours who use Joost, and at the same time allows you to send status updates based on your Joost activity to your Facebook Wall.
It's a notably more aggressive approach than simply allowing people to create profiles and expecting them to buddy up. And it may be a wise one: people often trust their friends and other peers to recommend content to them, so it may be that Joost will enjoy greater involvement from their watchers -and attract more of them - by tapping Facebook's massive user base of frequent visitors. And more users not only mean more ad revenue, but also more people helping to distribute video.
These simple ideas -- get people watching together, and let them share their bandwidth - seem to be working. So if you'd like a little help finding the best content, Joost might be just right.
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