Last week when I checked my email I saw an email from the Joost guys accepting me to be part of the testers of The Venice Project, now called Joost.
Joost™ is a new way of watching TV on the internet, which uses new and established technologies to provide the best of both the internet and TV worlds
I was really excited with the opportunity to use it, mainly because a lot of people have been talking about it, fellows like Leo Laporte on his podcasts TWIT and Macbreak Weekly.
Well I’ve played with it a lot, I have to say that it’s a promising idea, you can choose channels, then programs, pretty much like a regular tv but on your computer.
Joost™ uses secure peer-to-peer technology to stream programmes to your computer. Unlike other TV and video-based web applications, it does not require users to download any files to their computers or browse through complicated websites.
The interface is really beautiful, although I didn’t like their icons too much. However it works great, you can keep watching a show while surfing through new channels. There is the My Joost icon where you open the notice board, the chat, clock, the instant messaging, and the Rate it box. The list of channels and programs is really well done, however the looping that they use on the list annoys me a lot, sometimes there are like 3 programs but it looks like there are many more.
Now the quality of the image, well we can watch the programs in full screen, what is really cool, but the image’s quality is not that good. Maybe my internet connection is not fast enough or that will improve with the release of the final version.
The most imporant thing about Joost is that if it can do and become what Skype has become, we will have a really great tool. But that will depend on what shows they will have available on it. Lets wait and see.
The Interface
Joost Widgets
The list of programs, the same for the channels
Watching in full screen is really awesome, though the quality is not that great.
It's still in beta
