SeeSaw

SeeSaw is the one-stop shop for online television that Arqiva built from the ashes of Project Kangaroo. SeeSaw entered an invite-only beta last month, but has now launched fully, with any British resident now able to use the service as they wish.

SeeSaw is a free, advertising-based site which draws video offerings from a number of different sources. It then serves them up in a very user-friendly environment with good quality video playback and a minimum of adverts.

From Beta To Public

Having used SeeSaw during the beta period, I reviewed how the site was progressing a few weeks ago. I really like the design and layout, but the content and how the site is going to offer anything above and beyond the sources its using remain sticking points to a wholehearted recommendation.

The good thing is that the site is now open for all to use and make their own minds up. The beta was very short and nothing has changed as far as I can see. Unfortunately that also means there are no new sources, with the BBC, 4oD, and Five still the only content providers listed.

Arqiva launched the site fully on Wednesday, with SeeSaw controller John Keeling telling the Daily Mail:

“It’s like having an enormous buffet… you can either just snack on it and catch up on what you’ve missed or gorge yourself with an entire season – it’s absolutely at your fingertips and your control.”

This is the tip of the iceberg, it feels to me like it did 20 years ago when I was at Sky and multi-channel TV was just beginning and you saw satellite dishes sprouting on people’s homes like mushrooms.”

Future Options

While SeeSaw is currently free to watch, with revenue being gained from 2 minutes of adverts for each video, this will change later in the year. Arqiva hopes to double its content over the next few months, including premium U.S. content.

At this point, planned for around June, Arqiva will begin to explore pay options. Users will then be able to rent shows and possibly TV movies as well. These will be streams rather than downloads, with a 48-hour window to watch the bought content without ads.

SeeSaw is also thought to be investigating the possibilities of a subscription package for the premium service. Which isn’t surprising as it’s a route also being explored by Hulu, YouTube, and Apple for iTunes.

Conclusions

The SeeSaw story is only just beginning, and it’s started well. Arqiva’s willingness to forge deals with content providers, that Hulu hasn’t been able to do in its race to go international, means more content is sure to arrive. And that will be key in persuading people that SeeSaw is an essential service.

The Mighty Joost

As Joost reaches this unfortunate end, it’s hard to imagine quite how big a deal the service was in the run up to and around its launch. Hell, it was so secretive and self-important that it was known as The Venice project prior to being renamed Joost.

The service began life in October 2006 after being created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. The pair were already well-known for both Skype and Kazaa so the signs were all there that Joost was guaranteed to succeed.

Prior to its launch, Joost had hundreds of software developers working on the service and had signed up a million eager beta testers (me included). But its launch at the end of 2007 was to be the high point for the service.

Joost Is Dead

This week saw Adconian Media Group acquire the assets of Joost for an undisclosed sum of money. Adconian is an online advertising network which clearly wants the Joost technology and branding to roll out better online video advertising.

Adconian maintains it intends to keep Joost.com running but the site is sure to change over the next few months as a result of the acquisition. 12 out of approximately 20 Joost staff members have joined Adconian as part of the deal, but details are very thin on the ground.

What Went Wrong?

This is a sad end for a service which had bags of potential and interest from around the world when it began. So, what went wrong?

Two things clearly contributed to Joost’s downfall:

1. A lack of essential, new content. Programming on Joost was bitty to say the least, with a combination of short, niche clips and archive shows from yesteryear. And while some enjoyed watching this content, it wasn’t enough to pull in the viewers.

2. The need to download the peer-to-peer desktop client meant many simply turned and fled. Joost finally switched to a Web-based solution in October 2008 but it was too little, too late by then.

Conclusions

The huge build-up to the release of Joost and its subsequent failure to really pull in viewers against the likes of YouTube and Hulu should be a lesson not just to online video startups but technology startups everywhere.

The market moves at such a pace that anyone caught stalling for even a moment can fall behind and fail to ever recover. Oh, and content is still king – that fact is as clear as anything.

Everything In Place

Joost seemed to have every chance of succeeding when it launched as The Venice Project in October of 2006. Early hype made it a much in demand start-up, with everyone wanting to test the new high quality, on-demand video streaming service out. Which they did in their droves thanks to an invite-only beta.

The funding was also there in place, with $45 million raised from some big names including Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, Viacom, and CBS. It was Hulu before Hulu was even a twinkle in its shareholders eyes. Success seemed guaranteed but clearly nothing is guaranteed in the world of technology.

Long Painful Death

There have been problems at the company for a while now, with some believing it to be only a matter of time before the whole thing collapsed under the weight of no one caring anymore. And while it’s still there, chugging away, it feels like Joost is about to die. It’s just a matter of how long and painful a death it is set to suffer.

In a last-ditch effort to stay alive, Joost has announced a raft of changes to the make up of the company and what services it is going to offering. CEO Mike Volpi is out, to be replaced by the former SVP of engineering Matt Zelesko. 90 percent of its workforce is also getting cut, with just core teams being kept in place in New York and London.

White Video Label Provider

Joost as a whole is going to be changing direction. The Joost television portal will remain open (at least for the time being) but the new focus will be on turning the company into a white label video provider providing services to others. That is if anyone actually wants to acquire those services.

Joost providing the back-end technology and support for other companies may not seem like a bad move but, as NewTeeVee points out, this is usually the strategy taken when all else has failed. It’s also a strange move seeing as Joost already uses Ooyala, another white label video provider, to do just that for its offering.

Conclusions

The white label video sector is already a crowded one. Granted, it’s not quite as crowded as the one Joost seems to now be moving away from but I can’t see the likes of Ooyala and Brightcove rolling over in the face of Joost, which, let’s face it, has arrived late at the party. Especially as Yahoo! seems to have bailed on Maven after buying the company at the beginning of last year.

Whether Joost can make a successful move into this sector isn’t yet clear, but what is clear is it has failed to live up to its early hype as an online video streaming service. Is it just a matter of time before the dream of its founders ends for good or can Joost live on after evolving into a new business?

An Exciting Launch

Joost launched in beta form (as The Venice Project) in 2006, and soon became one of the most-wanted apps by anyone interested in online video. One million people signed up to use the service within a year and then it finally launched at the end of 2007.

I remember those heady days when the invites to try out Joost were like gold-dust. Having finally got one, I tried the service out, was impressed with it, but had to stop using it due to it slowing down my computer a great deal. If there had been more quality programming available then maybe I would have persevered, but there wasn’t, so I got rid of the desktop app pretty quickly.

Reality Hits

By the summer of 2008, Joost had lost most of its sparkle. It wasn’t really being spoken about, there was no buzz surrounding it, and people just seemed to have stopped caring. This was partly due to the delivery method (proprietary P2P via a desktop client) being seen as overrated and unnecessary. Again, the programming didn’t help.

September 2008 brought rumors of a new Web-based content delivery system replacing the desktop client entirely. This was completely down to the success of similar methods employed by Hulu and the BBC iPlayer. Strangely, the latter has now reverted to a desktop client for PC users, although P2P has been replaced with Adobe AIR.

Web-based, Still Sucks

Joost went ahead with the switch to a Web-based delivery system, along with the launching of other new features. But it all felt like being too little, too late. Hulu had, by then, grabbed a huge slice of the American Web viewing audience thanks to premium, up-to-date programming. Joost just couldn’t compete.

There were questions at the time as to whether Joost could survive. It has done, until now, and in fact co-founder Mike Volpi recently wrote a triumphant blog post explaining that traffic is up and the future looks bright. But there is another possibility.

Looking To Sell?

CNET claims a source as revealing that Joost is currently shopping itself out to potential buyers. The company is pitching the service to cable and satellite television companies as being a possible ready-made online video solution for their move from old media to new media. Time Warner Cable is mentioned as being a possible buyer.

Both companies have so far declined to comment on the article, but it would seem there is no smoke without fire. The fact is that while Joost’s traffic isn’t all that, it does have a framework in place to provide a media company with a fast and easy route into online video. Whether any are brave enough to pay the asking price and attempt to take on the likes of Hulu remains to be seen.

Hulu Vs. Joost Vs. TV.com

Hulu and Joost were once the two big online video portals battling it out for the hearts and minds of viewers. But Joost has fallen by the wayside of late, a victim of not having enough premium content regularly airing. The switch to being browser-based has helped, but not enough to keep it buzzworthy and in the news.

The new battle seems to be between Hulu and TV.com, a relatively new entry into he video portal market after evolving from being a more community-based affair. The two sites have traded blows recently, with Hulu removing its content from TV.com after the former realized the latter could be stiff competition.

TV.com On The Up

Just a few days ago, TV.com announced it would be making some short-form content available internationally, breaking the site free of its U.S. only shackles. This is something Hulu has hinted at for months but never actually delivered on.

And now the CBS-owned TV.com has beat Hulu to the punch again, this time releasing an iPhone application. The app offers all iPhone and iPod Touch users the chance to watch TV.com content on their mobile device. This includes full episodes of shows such as Star Trek, Beverly Hills 90210, and C.S.I..

Jeff Sellinger, Executive Vice President and General Manager, CBS Mobile said:

“CBS Mobile is excited to be on Apple’s App Store with our application for TV.com, where TV lives online – and now on iPhone and iPod touch,”

“Fans can now watch their favorite shows, great clips and create custom channels whenever and wherever they want through the iPhone and iPod touch application.”

The Need For Flash

TV.com isn’t the first online video site to go down this route, with Joost launching a similar app at the end of last year. And YouTube has been available since the beginning. But more telling is the sites that haven’t yet launched apps to enable mobile viewing, the biggest of which is obviously Hulu.

The biggest problem for Hulu is that it uses Adobe Flash to deliver video content, and Flash isn’t yet compatible with the iPhone and many other of the new-generation of mobile devices. Hulu has indicated it’s working on a iPhone app but it’s relying on Apple and Adobe to work together to make Flash available on the iPhone.

Mobile Video Popularity Explosion

A recent study by ABI Research suggests that there will be 500 million mobile TV viewers by 2013, in a market worth an estimated $50 billion. The number of mobile television users is expected to double every year between now and then. In other words, mobile video is about to explode in popularity.

This shows how important it is for any online video portal worth its salt to offer its users the chance to watch on the move. The fact that both TV.com and Joost have beaten Hulu to the punch means the NBC and News Corp. venture is playing catch-up and risks being left behind.

[Via Contentinople]

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Here are my highlights of 2008 in the world of Web TV, with the two or three most fascinating or biggest stories from each month of the year. I wonder if 2009 will hold equal delights?

January

The year began with speculation as to whether Joost would survive the year. And despite a dodgy economy and bumps along the way, it has managed it. Meanwhile, there was an intriguing story concerning how BitTorrent wasn’t being used just by pirates to swap illegal wares.

February

Blu-ray finally won the battle of the high-definition formats but would it really matter in the end when digital downloads were surely the future? Quarterlife made its NBC TV debut and unfortunately didn’t do very well, proving Web video still has a way to go before mainstream acceptance is guaranteed.

March

Hulu launched in beta, and we had a full and frank look at what it offered.

YouTube founder Steve Chen argued that vetting videos uploaded to the site would ruin the immediacy. While a Web-based Joost was first rumored, a rumor which came true later in the year.

April

The month began with YouTube delivering the ultimate RickRoll. Then the popular torrent tracker Demonoid came back online after six months. The photo-sharing site Flickr launched video, which didn’t really cut the mustard and even lead to a user revolt.

May

The Roku player launched, with a budget price of just $99. It has since moved on from its initial use as a Netflix-only service provider. There were also predictions about the future of online video, with one billion users guesstimated in five years time.

June

Should Google kill YouTube? was the question that screamed from the page in June. But a look at the successful phenomenon that is Fred shows why YouTube is important to the health of the Web. Meanwhile, the BBC launched iPlayer 2.0, a vast improvement on the original.

July

This month saw the release of The Dark Knight, the new Batman movie. Keeping it pirate-free for 38 hours was regarded as a huge success but once it hit the Web, The Pirate Bay used it to taunt Hollywood. Meanwhile, Google described monetizing YouTube as “the Holy Grail”.

August

August was all about the Beijing Olympics. A delayed opening ceremony on NBC forced many people to the Web. Torrents proved massively popular, while in the end, the online coverage failed to make any serious money. Back to the drawing board for London 2012 then.

September

Avril Lavigne’s Girlfriend became the first video to break the 100 million views mark on YouTube. A video streaming site launched using The Pirate Bay’s popularity to gain traffic. While it looked as though the MPAA secretly killed off Peekvid when no-one was looking.

October

October saw my second attempt to explain my frustrations at having most premium video services denied me due to territorial rights licensing. While Steve Jobs describing Apple TV as a hobby lead to questions regarding whether set-top boxes will ever become essential?

November

It emerged that Hulu was set to match YouTube for profits despite enjoying a lot less traffic. Meanwhile, a man committed suicide live on Justin.tv, turning lifecasting into deathcasting.

December

December finally saw YouTube go HD after months of almost getting there but never quite managing it. This correlated with a feeling that the Google-owned site was growing up. Meanwhile, The Dark Knight was announced as the most pirated movie of the year.

SlingMedia

SlingMedia is the company responsible for the popular Slingbox device which allows you to broadcast a TV signal around your house via the Internet. It’s also recently launched the SlingCatcher, a set-top box to compete with the likes of AppleTV and Roku.

Not content with managing market battles on two fronts, SlingMedia has recently opened its Sling.com video portal up to the public, allowing users to stream movies and TV programs for free in Flash video format.

Sling.com Portal

The selection of content on offer is impressive, with major networks and studios such as CBS, NBC, Fox, Sony, Warner, and MGM offering their wares on the site. Sling is also a Hulu partner so will stream some of its content.

As well as the big sources, Sling offers content from PBS, BBC America, as well as syndicating Web video sites such as College Humor and Break.com. It makes for a site with a nice mix between short clips and longer, professionally made videos.

Slingbox Compatible

The big advantage Sling.com has over its competitors is the Slingbox itself. You can stream content directly from any Slingbox you own to your browser, and watch it directly. When signed into your user account, the site automatically detects any box linked.

However, not everything is peachy. For starters, live streaming is only available on computers running Windows, although a Mac version is promised soon. But much worse than that is the fact that once again, international viewers are once again being treated as second-class citizens.

Territorial Rights Licensing… Again

It feels like I’ve mentioned this on numerous different occasions, probably because I have. But it just makes no sense to ban the rest of the world from watching online video content. America may run the world these days, but the Internet is meant to be a global phenomenon supposed to make the world a smaller place.

What it means is that for me, Joost beats any of the other multi-source, multi-platform video sites on the Internet right now. Not because the content is brilliant, or the technology and usability is way ahead of its competitors, but purely because I, as a British person, can watch it. That’s of the utmost importance.

Conclusions

Sling.com is a nice looking portal that does add to the range and breadth of video sites on the Internet. But Hulu beats it for content, and Joost beats it for offering anyone outside of the U.S. a chance to actually take part.

[Via TechCrunch]

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We’ve been expecting this to happen for over a month now: Joost has become Web-based, eschewing the need for a plug-in to be downloaded. In fact, the plug-in option has been dropped altogether to keep things simple.

Long Overdue

This move was long overdue as viewers made it clear that they didn’t want to download anything or open up an application just to view the odd video. So more than a year after it was first suggested, Joost has dropped the plug-in.

Joost CEO Mike Volpi told NewTeeVee that the plug-in could come back in time if the need was justified. This would seem to be only necessary for streaming live events.

New Homepage

Now, when you visit Joost.com, you’re presented with a video player and lists of programmes to start watching. To do so, you still need an account and to be logged in, but it’s still a vast improvement.

This means Joost has joined the ranks alongside Hulu, YouTube, Veoh, DailyMotion, and the hundreds of other Web-based video sites offering a simple Flash player.

Bandwidth Vs Revenue

It also means that rather than the users sharing the bandwidth, the site will be taking the whole cost of streaming on its shoulders, which could mount up over time, especially if the site starts to attract more people.

We’ve heard a lot about YouTube venturing in to the world of advertising, but Joost is already there, having pre-roll adverts before each clip. This can become irksome but should mean the business model succeeds.

So Joost is now on a level playing field with Hulu, probably the most accomplished video site currently. But it’s unfortunately still lacking in content.

Lack Of Great Content

Some new shows and movies have been added to coincide with the launch of Joost Mark II, but most of these are only available in the US, excluding half of the site’s users from watching them.

What’s left is content that is neither exclusive or generally that interesting. Until the quality of what’s available on the site improves, I’m afraid Joost will still struggle to compete with Hulu.

Joost Mark II

Joost was all but dead and buried as a legitimate and viable option for viewers to get their Web television kicks. But, it’s now back, new, improved, and available as a browser-based TV service rather than being a desktop client.

What’s more, Joost Mark II was given a features overhaul, and now comes complete with genre searching, and Facebook-style social networking features.

Hulu Copies

Joost still may not have the volume or variety of unmissable content that Hulu has, but it’s back and competing on an even playing field once again. Or at least it was until Hulu decided to beat Joost at its own game.

Clearly prompted by the amount of attention being given to the improved Joost over the last couple of weeks, Hulu has copied some of the features included in the new version.

Hulu’s New Features

So, Hulu now also has genre searching capabilities, specialised topic channels, show recommendations, discussion forums, and better queue management. Sound similar?

Content Competition

Hulu is also boasting that it now has 900 TV and film titles from over 100 content providers. Which is great but doesn’t really compare to Joost’s 35,000 odd videos, although it must be said, a lot of those are short and not exactly must-see TV.

Whereas Hulu has a brilliant blend of new and old, original Web programming such as LG15: The Resistance and regular TV shows such as Heroes and 30 Rock, and a lot more besides.

Available To All

Joost does have one advantage though: it’s available to all. As I’m outside of the US, I am effectively banned from watching any of the content on Hulu, so however brilliant it may be doesn’t really matter.

Joost upping its game has lead Hulu to do the same, which is all good for us viewers who use the Internet to view programming. Let’s hope this war carries on for a while and gets even nastier, as we can only benefit from it.

The end of the Joost desktop client was rumoured a couple of weeks ago, but it’s now become a reality, with company CEO Mike Volpi outlining the new Joost in an official blog post.

Joost Mark II

So what’s changed? The first and most obvious difference with Joost Mark II is the service now being browser based rather than needing a desktop client to be installed.

For the moment, there is still a download required, but it’s only a plug-in enabling the use of P2P file transferring: designed to reduce bandwidth costs while enabling high quality video.

Joost Standard

From next month however, Joost will be offering what it is calling Joost Standard, which is still free, and still has all of the new features, but won’t require any download at all aside from the already standard Adobe Flash plug-in.

Joost has also tried to make it easier to find the videos and programmes you actually want to watch. The 35,000 videos currently available from the site will now be categorised by genre and sub-genre to narrow searches much more easily.

Video Social Network

Last but not least is the addition of a video social network. This includes a Facebook-style news feed that allows your friends to see what you have been watching.

There’s also the ability to comment on videos, favourite them, or send links to friends recommending them. The idea behind this is that people tend to watch things liked by other people in their circle of friends.

Conclusions

I’m going to be testing the new Joost over the next few days and posting a full review next week, but for now, suffice to say that this seems to be a huge improvement on the Joost of old.

Whether it’s actually enough of a change to make any difference to Joost’s fortunes, especially in trying to compete with Hulu and its wealth of sought-after content remains to be seen.