When Viacom pulled out the carpet underneath YouTube, I’m sure YouTube wasn’t expecting it was because there was someone else coming into the picture. Viacom left, and headed on over to Joost which is just getting their start. On the Joost site, they say that they’re a new way of watching TV on the Internet with channels, programs, and adverts.
So now just a couple of weeks after Viacom ordered the 100,000 videos be removed from YouTube, Viacom has made a new deal that involves the licensing of hundreds of hours of programming from networks like MTV, Comedy Central, Spike, and even movies from Paramount.
What makes Joost more appealing for Viacom is that users aren’t able to upload content themselves. That may not be very appealing for some users who’d like the option for uploading their content, but what is appealing is that Joost will be running full episodes, and to boot? High-quality resolution, which is something you wouldn’t find from YouTube.
No financial deals about the agreement have been disclosed yet, however, typically Viacom has gotten two-thirds of ad revenue for their compensation.
Joost has a sign-up if you want to get in on the beta testing. They say that they’re getting thousands of applications a day, so it may take time for them to get to you. Sign-up is here, and just requires basic info.
A couple of interesting facts: Joost was started by Niklas Zennstrm and Janus Friis. Recognize those names? They were the two founders of file-sharing service Kazaa, and Skype. They swept up $2.69 billion when Skype was acquired by eBay, so clearly they’re not running into problems financing the Joost deal.
Well, I signed up and have been confirmed but they said it will be a while before they get application processed. We shall see what happens.
Thanks for the update! It will be interesting to see if this takes off…
They said I could speed up to process if I knew someone who could send me an invitation…
i think it is a great news.
i’ve been testing joost for last month or so, and although at first it was unable to connect cause of my firewall (bug at joost end), now, version 0.8 is much more stable, and I even manage to watch it abit with my 750kb connection in israel.
hopefully the deal with Viacom won’t be made content available according to location, although it probably will be. but even so, its good to see a solid platform matched withs a solid business plan.
was there a “hint, wink, cough, hint” at the end there?
email me ur name and email and i will give u an invite.
trades.jack INSIDE Google DOT com
i have only one, so no pushing please.
What a nice guy Jack of all Trades!
Al
Edit it bounced back.
well, thats my email
and its not like it was full.
try again. gmail is slow as hell right now.
and dont forget the DOT between trades and jack.
or you can post ur email here (i didnt saw one at ur blog).
Go to contact us at the top.
My Thunderbird disappeared how odd…
Okay, I got the invite (which was a challenge). I have installed (after a lot fighting with Windows) the software. I’ll write more here later tonight after I had chance to take a look at this in more detail. Right now, I need to eat.
Way too much trouble. Even though I am allowing it, my Firewall keeps blocking the application. Once I ‘allow all’ it was working but I didn’t like runing the firewall on ‘allow all’. Installation was a pain as I had the get DirectX 9c from MS which since my machine doesn’t have WGA (irronically Windwos Update wanted me to install it earlier today) I had to download the validator. The only good thing I can say is it works with Win XP SP1 even though it says you need SP2.
It has potentional but their help is very unhelpful (is that a word?).
A lot of people had the same issue and when posted in the supprot form are told to look at the FAQs. The FAQs explain the problem and suggest a solution (allowing some ports), but it doesn’t make much sense if I am allowing the application to access the Internet.
glad you got the invite
which firewall is it?
like i said, i also problem with it (agnitum), but in 0.8 just allow all (and also ignore anti-leak settings) on all the executables of Joost, it runs ok.
no problem with directX and such, but maybe thats cause of what u said about SP1 and SP2.
don’t forget its the guys who made skype, which usually deals with all firewall with ease. so i hope it is just a beta problem.
Sygate Firewall. The program will run but unless I “allow all” I won’t get anything other than the crystals.
Does Youtube really even need Viacom?
Its not just youtube whose traffic is surging. Many of the video content websites have experienced an upswing. It’s interesting to read that Youtube’s early february traffic was greater than the combined traffic of all the network websites.
Youtube clones like [dailymotion.com] are also benefiting from the increased attention paid to these type sites. Interestingly there are even youtube-type [freepornvideos69.com] sites like [freepornvideos69.com] (NSFW) that have popped up to take advantage of this phenomenon.
We can probably expect the big network websites to offer even more vidoes to try to compete in the future.