Retrospectacle: A Neuroscience Blog

What is Joost and What Can It Do For Me?

Posted by Shelley Batts on March 2, 2007
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Remember when I asked if evil, evil You Tube was really so evil for broadcasting copyrighted material? Well the kerfuffle was over Viacom pulling their content off YouTube and putting it on rising-star video thingy Joost. I was looking at this new-fangled Joost thing, and it *seems* to be TV through the internet, and they are asking for Beta testers. Well, of course I signed up!

So my questions are these: Someone give me the run-down on this Joost thing (the site FAQ are crappy). And, second, are there any current Joost beta testers out there? Third, if you are a beta tester, give me a token. :) Pretty pullleeese?

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Comments

  1. #1 Ole Blue
    March 2, 2007

    Interesting, from what I have read of reviews it is free TV.

    I may have to become a beta tester myself.

  2. #2 Luis Brudna
    March 2, 2007

    I have a token to you.
    Send me an e-mail with your e-mail. :-)

  3. #3 darkman
    March 2, 2007

    there’s nothing more heart-warming than a begging blogger. but look shel – you got your token! enjoy the Joost… just watch out… some guy named Gates has made winds about interactive TV-thru-computers recently. He might squash Joost like an impertinent little child (or just buy them and rape their technology) if they get in his way.

  4. #4 Shelley Batts
    March 2, 2007

    Darkman, you’re just jealous. :P I fear no Gates.

  5. #5 Cameron
    March 2, 2007

    Joost is basically what you’d get if youtube and bittorrent had a baby.

    The first person to watch a video receives all of the data from Joost’s central servers. The second will receive data from both Joost and the first person. By using user’s upload bandwidth they can surpass the quality limitations that youtube has without additional costs.

    It’ll be interesting to see how the tv networks react.

  6. #6 PeterC
    March 3, 2007

    I’ve signed up myself. The only major downside is that the bandwidth cost is greater than the file size. If your provider limits how many gigs you can download a month then you have to limit how much you watch or pay the excess. Annoyingly you can’t know from the download size of the video how many gigs it’ll cost you off your limit. There is also the problem of people rigging their software not to upload. If there are any who do you end up using even more of your allowance.
    Oh and on the security front hackers can use this sort of system to get your DNS address. As they know you are online they can launch an attack against your address. It’s a problem I’ve noticed on similar software in the past.

  7. #7 Cameron
    March 3, 2007

    Joost definitely isn’t made for college campuses or EVDO. But the fraction of people in the US who have monthly bandwidth limits is very small. (Though all will complain if you leave it on constantly)

    People overrigging their software won’t be an issue. Joost’s servers keep stats on users upload/download ratios. If they have bandwidth problems they can start putting up restrictions.

    That being said, not all traffic shaping is exploitive. You should check out NetLimiter. It’ll let you keep uploads to a level that’s acceptable to you.

    For me the real concern re:Joost is that if it gets extremely popular the internet won’t be able to support it. (Google and Microsoft both say it can’t support widespread video) I just hope they’ve written in code to match people from the same ISPs, so that the more popular it becomes the more the load is spread to the ISProvider’s internal networks.

  8. #8 Shelley Batts
    March 3, 2007

    Thanks to Luis I now have Joost, and lemme just say its AMAZING! As many people as possible should sign up so this good idea expands and takes hold. You can even chat (AIM, GChat, etc) while watching it full screen and there lots up useful widgets and add-ons. The TV is actually interesting stuff too, lots of National Geographic specials which is mostly what I’d been watching so far. Also an interesting documentary on AIDS-awareness commercials over the years. Crazy cool!!!

  9. #9 Jorg
    March 4, 2007

    Joost-schmoost. Beta-schmeta. If they had a Linux version, I might consider it…on second thought, do I really have time to watch any TV, on or offline? Nah…;)

  10. #10 dan dright
    March 4, 2007

    I am jealous. I signed up for their beta and was exceedingly witty about it and never got chosen. :(

  11. #11 Mike
    March 5, 2007

    Gates? Perhaps not. Microsoft aren’t the ones who’ve been rumoured to be buying up a large number of servers and bandwidth.

    Google are.

  12. #12 Cameron
    March 5, 2007

    Microsoft is doing anything google does, at this point.