Joost 0.9 is here. Not that much to say really. It feels a bit smoother but still a bit resource heavy. The list of channels is growing nicely but I’m disappointed with the lack of improvements to the interface. It just isn’t intuitive or easy to use.
You will still need a beta invite if you wish to try out Joost. After giving away my last 2 invites (and without even a thank you) I have been given some more tokens for the 0.9 launch.
Leave a comment to this post to request yours. Blog owners get priority.
I’ve got two Joost invites left and Joost has emailed me today saying I need to get rid of them in 2 days or I’ll lose them as the company will now be moving to a new invite system.
I’ve already given out twentytwo to WebTVWire readers in the past so if you haven’t had one yet here is your chance. Just leave a comment on this post. Preference will be given to anyone else who runs a blog\news site (especially if it’s web TV related).
Update: The two invites have been given out to the first 2 people who commented - please check more recent posts to see if I’m giving out any more
People often look at the number of visitors that a website receives, and how many pages that visitors look at on the site, to decide whether a website is popular or not. An easy way to do that is just too simply check the Alexa traffic rank of a website.
But just because a site is busy does not mean that people necessarily like it more than a site which is less busy. But how could you see how much people actually like a site?
Use Del.icio.us to compare popularity
Well you could check how many times people have bookmarked all the pages from a site (not just the homepage) in Del.icio.us. People will only tend to bookmark something if they find it interesting.
It is pretty much impossible to find out how many Del.icio.us bookmarks a website has. You would have to search for every single page of that website in Del.icio.us and add then together all the bookmarks. Can you imagine doing that for a site like YouTube?
Well I thought of a way to cheat! That is by simply checking how many backlinks a website has from Delicious to the website in question. I did this by just using the following query in Yahoo:
That query returns 46,000 backlinks from Del.icio.us to pages on YouTube. Compare that to its competitor MetaCafe.com which only has 2,560 backlinks from Del.icio.us.
It is safe to say that the more backlinks from Del.icio.us, the more bookmarks in Del.icio.us, and hence the more people like the site.
I crunched some numbers and found that often the number of backlinks was 1/10th of the actual number Del.icio.us bookmarks (but that’s a very rough estimate). So now you have a very easy way to estimate Del.icio.us bookmarks by just multiplying the number of backlinks by 10.
To get an idea of how well a site is liked you also need to measure the number of Del.icio.us bookmarks against the traffic of a website. I’ve just simply compared it against Alexa Rank in the table below.
Popularity of ten video sites compared using Del.icio.us bookmarks and Alexa Traffic Rank:
Website
Del.icio.us Backlinks
Alexa Rank
YouTube.com
46000
4
MetaCafe.com
2560
141
DailyMotion.com
1650
113
Peekvid.com
1380
722
Joost.com
557
8,663
wwitv.com
463
2,862
TVUNetworks.com
222
15,873
Flurl.com
163
216
StupidVideos.com
68
5,940
SearchforVideo.com
29
7,982
As you can see YouTube.com is immensely popular compared to its closest competitors MetaCafe and DailyMotion.
Joost stands out as a website which is already proving popular compared to sites with similar traffic.
Flurl.com stands out as a very busy site which few people actually bookmark, indicating people just visit in passing and it lacks a solid community.
I think the number of Del.icio.us bookmarks definately helps to point out the sites that have a more loyal community, compared to websites where people just visit it in passing.
I am please to announce the winners of the Joost invite competition.
The 20 winners are listed below along with their correct answer. All winners should have already received an invite from Joost with the email you provided.
The competition brought out some interesting sites from the wood work. Many I have heard of but there were definitely some interesting ones that I hadn’t heard of, or didn’t know were working with video. Nice work everyone!
I promised you about a week ago some Joost invites. Your chance has now arrived to get a sneak peek at the P2P program that is being tipped to revolutionize the TV industry.
I’m giving away 20 Joost invites to anyone who is willing to take part in this quick competition:
The Joost invite competition:
You must leave a comment to this post and state a SINGLE website that is EITHER a:
Video search engine A video search indexes videos from multiple websites and uses textual information — and sometimes the speech within a video — to assign meta data to that video. Videos can be searched for by keyword and results can often be filtered by a variety of criteria such as length, quality etc. An example is searchforvideo.com. Video sharing websites like YouTube or DailyMotion will not be accepted.
Community driven video aggregator A community driven video aggregator is a website where the community submits videos to the website from all over the web. The rest of the community then votes for the videos and the best videos get more exposure. An example is digg.com/videos. Video sharing websites like YouTube or DailyMotion will not be accepted.
Video Blog Subscriber and Player This is usually a piece of software that allows you to subscribe to any video blog that has an RSS feed. It will automatically download the latest video and organize it into your own video library. Then you can just watch the latest episodes from your favorite video blogs or internet TV episodes when you want to. An example is Instant Media. Regular RSS readers that download enclosures will not be accepted.
You must state the URL of the website and whether it is a video search engine, a community driven video aggregator, or a video blog subscriber.
If someone has already posted that website correctly then you won’t be entered into the competition, so the earlier you leave your comment the easier it will be!
The competition will close at midnight (EST) on Sunday 4th March and I’ll select 20 winners at random and email them a Joost invite.
I’ve just got news that Viacom will be teaming up with Joost to provide TV shows from MTV, BET Networks and Paramount Pictures on the P2P internet TV platform. This comes just weeks after Viacom laid into YouTube requesting it remove 100,000+ videos, and were accused of sending “bullshit” takedown notices.
But it looks like Viacom are happy to have their content online with Joost where they will likely get a much better revenue sharing deal, but probably a lot less viewers as it is going to be hard for Joost to reach anywhere near YouTube levels. The press release is below, and screenshots of Joost can be seen here.
Joost/Viacom Press Release
VIACOM TO BE KEY CONTENT PARTNER WITH JOOST™,
THE WORLD’S FIRST ONLINE GLOBAL TV DISTRIBUTION PLATFORM
Popular Programming from MTV Networks, BET Networks and Paramount Pictures
Will Be Available for Joost’s Launch
NEW YORK, Feb. [20], 2007 – Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA and VIA.B), a leading global entertainment company, and Joost™ (www.joost.com), the world’s first broadcast-quality Internet television service, announced today that Viacom will be a key content partner and will offer a full range of brands and programming for free to consumers on the innovative Joost distribution platform. Under the agreement, Viacom’s divisions – MTV Networks, BET Networks and Paramount Pictures – will provide television and theatrical programming on the Joost platform. Founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, Joost is powered by a secure, efficient, piracy-proof Internet platform that enables premium interactive video experiences while guaranteeing copyright protection for content owners and creators. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Joost will allow users to have free access to thousands of programs and channels not readily available on the Web. Through Joost, viewers can watch programming from many of Viacom’s brands on their computers through a customizable platform with advanced television viewing features such as links that lead to more information or related websites based on the content; and a variety of plug-in applications, such as instant messaging, message boards, and news tickers.
Currently available in limited beta, Joost combines the best of TV and the best of the Internet by offering viewers a unique, TV-like experience enhanced with the choice, control and flexibility of Web 2.0. Joost is the first online, global TV distribution platform, bringing together advertisers, content owners and viewers in an interactive, community-driven environment. Joost can be accessed with a broadband Internet connection and offers broadcast-quality content to viewers for free.
“We’re extremely pleased to be working with Joost, and couldn’t be prouder to be a key partner in the launch of the next generation in broadband video technology,” said Philippe Dauman, Viacom President and Chief Executive Officer. “We have the number one portfolio of entertainment sites in the world and unrivaled distribution on mobile devices, but we’re determined to keep pushing and growing our digital presence and bring our programming to audiences on every platform and device that they want. In addition to strong partnerships we have with traditional distributors, we will continue to seek out partners like Joost, which has created an exciting breakthrough platform that represents not only a fantastic user experience, but one that is built on a compelling and sustainable business model that respects both content creators and consumers.”
Janus Friis, founder of Joost said, “We built this platform from the ground up, with companies like Viacom in mind. Our platform provides scalable distribution, in a completely safe environment that protects the interest of content owners and advertisers, while delighting viewers. We’re extremely excited about this partnership and look forward to enabling Viacom to reach new audiences for its new and classic programming.”
Yvette Alberdingkthijm, executive vice president, content strategy and acquisition for Joost said, “Viacom’s properties are perfectly suited to Joost. We’re thrilled to be a part of Viacom’s digital strategy.”
MTV Networks will provide premier content from several of its brands for launch. MTV will offer popular shows, both past and present, including Laguna Beach, Beavis & Butthead, Real World, Punk’d and My Super Sweet Sixteen, while COMEDY CENTRAL will feature episodes from Stella, CCP’s and Freak Show. Nickelodeon, CMT: Country Music Television, MTV2, Logo, Spike TV, mtvU, and Gametrailers.com will also provide content. VH1’s offerings will include episodes of Flavor of Love, Surreal Life, and I Love New York. BET’s Networks’ offerings will include some of its biggest shows, including Beef, DMX: Soul of a Man, Comic View and recent smash hit American Gangster. Also, Paramount Pictures, Paramount Vantage and Paramount Classics will be providing full-length feature films from its catalog of classics and recent releases.
About Viacom
Viacom is a leading global entertainment content company, with prominent and respected brands in focused demographics. Engaging its audiences through television, motion pictures and digital platforms, Viacom reaches its audiences wherever they consume content. Viacom’s leading brands include the multiplatform properties of MTV Networks, including MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, COMEDY CENTRAL, CMT: Country Music Television, Spike TV, TV Land, Logo and more than 130 networks around the world, as well as digital assets such as Neopets, Xfire, IFILM and Atom Entertainment; BET Networks; Paramount Pictures; Paramount Home Entertainment; DreamWorks; and Famous Music. More information about Viacom and its businesses is available at www.viacom.com.
About Joost™
Joost™ provides a new way of watching TV that combines the best of full-screen television entertainment with online interactive and community benefits to bring an unprecedented selection of video content to viewers anytime, anywhere. Joost is based on a state-of-the-art, secure, peer-to-peer streaming technology.
To learn more about Joost or to become a beta-tester, visit www.joost.com.
Joost Invites
In my previous post about Joost I got a lot of requests from people for a beta invite. I choose 2 at random and have sent out the invites.
Adam Hopkinson and Brad Layfield were the lucky people to be selected.
I have managed to get a lot more invites for Joost to give away too and I’ll be running a competition in the next week or so. If you are keen to get an invite then you might want to subscribe to WebTVWire by RSS or email to keep an eye out for the competition.
- Here are some of the most funny You Tube clips.
- Sing along to your favorite songs by getting lyrics from this extensive music database.
Joost, the P2P internet TV application from the creators of Skype and Kazaa, has launched version 0.8 of its beta along with a much needed Mac beta version too. The update has been accompanied by the addition of some much needed channels to Joost. Here’s what Joost had to say:
"Today we have good news, and we have great news. In addition to the 0.8 release which includes new CoreAVC Video decoder, which significantly improves the quality of the video, we also have an Intel Mac beta version.
In checking out the improved video quality, we also hope you’ll notice that we’ve added quite a lot of content and quite a few channels. These include:
Documentaries from National Geographic;
Loud noise and fast cars from the Indy Racing League;
Healthy living programming from Lime;
A variety of reality series in the Lazy TV channel from Endemol;
Cartoons like Rocky and Bullwinkle in Saturday Morning TV (Classic Media);
A lineup of independent film makers from IndieFlix;
More reality TV with the Bridezillas series from September Films;
Video gaming tricks and reviews form Gamestar;
Comical, irreverent and edgy programming from Bite TV
And cool new Bollywood music videos from Savvn.
The number one question that we’ve received throughout our beta period has been about when we’re going to make a Mac version available. We’re happy that we can finally say, that day has arrived!
The Mac version looks a lot like the Windows version but behaves like a Mac application. Note this beta is still Intel only."
In my last post about Joost I got a lot of requests from people for a beta invite. I choose 2 at random and have sent out the invites.
Adam Hopkinson and Brad Layfield were the lucky people to be selected.
I have managed to get a few more invites for Joost to give away too and I’ll be running a competition in the next week or so. If you are keen to get an invite then you might want to subscribe to WebTVWire by RSS or email to keep an eye out for the competition.
Joost 0.9 is here. Not that much to say really. It feels a bit smoother but still a bit resource heavy. The list of channels is growing nicely but I’m disappointed with the lack of improvements to the interface. It just isn’t intuitive or easy to use.
People often look at the number of visitors that a website receives, and how many pages that visitors look at on the site, to decide whether a website is popular or not. An easy way to do that is just too simply check the Alexa traffic rank of a website. 
I am please to announce the winners of the 
Everybody but nobody wants to get their filthy hands on a beta copy of Joost, well at least anyone who can use a computer and likes a bit of free TV. 
I’ve just got news that Viacom will be teaming up with Joost to provide TV shows from MTV, BET Networks and Paramount Pictures on the P2P internet TV platform. This comes just weeks after 