Joost: The Revolution will be... Streamed?

Authored by Jay Baage on February 21, 2007 - 1:38pm.

Isn’t it interesting that groundbreaking innovation seems so simple in hindsight? At first, I didn’t know what to make of Janus Friis and Niklas Zennströms’ IPTV service Joost. Another YouTube? Then I signed up as a beta-user and realized: Oh, this is nothing like YouTube! It feels and looks like television but with the best features of the Internet: “The opening was there”, says Friis. “Somebody needed to take it.”

It seems strange that none of the big media giants beat Zennstrom and Friis to the punch, but they didn’t. Merging the TV and the Internet seems like a simple enough idea, but in reality poses a number of technological, regulatory, and business challenges. However, in Joost, Friis and Zennström have created a legal Napster for video that actually benefits all parties involved – users, as well as content owners and advertisers. Quite an accomplishment. If you haven’t read the Wired piece yet, I highly recommend it. One of the more memorable observations from it:

“The mind-bender is that, once upon a time, the Net was supposed to kill television. Now two of the Net’s boldest entrepreneurs are trying to reinvent television. And not just broadcast technology but the user interface, the ads, the whole experience. Television perfected!”

Indeed, television has looked and behaved much the same for the last 30 or so years. I should know, I wrote my master’s thesis on television in the 21st century and spent a year researching the development in the medium under the supervision of Al Lieberman, a well-known professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business and David Poltrack, Chief Research Officer at CBS and President of CBS Vision.

So, is Joost the answer? It remains to be seen. We know from the news yesterday that Viacom is betting that it is. And my educated guess is that more deals with content owners will follow. Friis and Zennström have a pretty good track record of disruptive IP-applications, having created file-sharing network Kazaa and the IP-telephony application Skype. In short, they don’t have problems getting industry insiders to return their calls these days.

However, as the Wired piece rightly points out, there are millions of reasons why Joost should not work out. Perhaps the main one being the question of why giant corporations like Time Warner, Disney and Viacom should hand over the keys to their content to these Vikings? After all, the entrepreneurial duo just stormed into port – in essence a couple of (very successful) tech geeks trying to persuade an army of well trained media professionals with a war chest of cash, to adopt their technology.

Now this is when it gets tricky, you might agree on paper with the old Silicon Valley saying that you should not bet against the Internet. However, when you have shareholders, old media moguls and star producers and Hollywood heavyweights throwing their weight around, things get, well, complicated.

It is a whole new game out there and the Internet has changed the rules. Joost has just adjusted and done it quicker than any of the old players. Now, unless you think that things will change back to the old rules of analog broadcast, you better adjust your strategy if you are a media company. At least you owe it to yourself to take a good look at Joost and make up your own mind whether there is true merit or just a Viking ship packed with geeks on an ego-trip.

From my perspective, I think Joost is pretty cool, and with continuous innovation it should only get better and become more interesting. I’ll definitely stay tuned – put the pop-corn in the microwave, sit back and watch. Oh, that’s right – this is television 2.0 – I better pop a Jolt cola and lean forward.

Joakim Baage

The Following is a note that Dirk-Willem van Gulik, CTO, Joost, sent out to all beta-users on Tuesday:

Subject Line: Joost Unplugged!

Great news from the Joost Content Team. Today we're announcing a major
partnership with Viacom. Which will bring programming and lots of
channels from Viacom's key brands and properties available on Joost
on our imminent 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.

This content isn't available yet. We're working hard on shipping,
transcoding and feeding the P2P network (and no, despite malicious
gossip to the contrary - engineering is not giving Star Trek or
Ren&Stimpy top priority) it will all be there for our launch.

Stay tuned!

Dw. -- Dirk-Willem van Gulik, CTO, Joost.