The Joost homepage in May 2009 |
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| Developer(s) | Joost N.V. |
| Preview release | 1.1.7 / June 18, 2008 |
| Operating system | Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OS X (Intel only), iPhone OS, PlayStation 3 |
| Available in | English |
| Type | P2P/TV |
| License | Freeware |
| Website | Joost.com |
Joost ( /ˈdʒuːst/) is an Internet TV service, created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (founders of Skype and Kazaa). During 2007-8 Joost used peer-to-peer TV technology to distribute content to their Mozilla-based desktop player; in late 2008 this was migrated to use a Flash-based Web player instead.
Joost began development in 2006. Working under the code name "The Venice Project", Zennström and Friis assembled teams of some 150 software developers in about six cities around the world, including New York, London, Leiden and Toulouse. According to Zennström at a 25 July 2007 press conference about Skype held in Tallinn, Estonia, Joost had signed up more than a million beta testers, and its launch was scheduled for the end of 2007.[1]
The team signed up with Warner Music, Indianapolis Motor Speedway Productions (Indianapolis 500, IndyCar Series) and production company Endemol for the beta.[2] In February 2007, Viacom entered into a deal with the company to distribute content from its media properties, including MTV Networks, BET and film studio Paramount Pictures.
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The program is based on P2PTV technology and is expected to deliver (relaying) near-TV resolution images. It turns a PC into an instant on-demand TV without any need for an additional set-up box. News updates, discussion forums, show ratings, and multi-user chat sessions (often linked to the active stream/channel) are made possible through the use of semi-transparent widget overlays.
The initial version of the software was based on XULRunner and the audio management re-uses the ZAP Media Kit. The peer to peer layer for on-demand video comes from the Joltid company, which also provided the peer to peer layer of Skype. A peer to peer layer for live video was developed from scratch, with a first trial run broadcasting March Madness 2008.[3] The video playback utilizes the CoreCodec, CoreAVC H.264 video decoder.
Joost soft launched its Widget API on August 29, 2007 under a non-copyleft open source license and encourages third party developers to create tools for its TV 2.0 platform.
In 2009 Joost released a special site of joost for the PlayStation 3 internet browser that took advantage of some of the internet browser's full screen and 'x' button capabilities. By holding the 'x' button you can choose various video options using the d-pad.
As co-owners of Skype, Friis and Zennström received part of a $2.6 billion cash payment when eBay acquired Skype in 2005, which easily covered the development and marketing cost of their Joost venture. Just a week after launching the service, the founders announced that they had raised an additional $45 million. Sequoia Capital, which backed Yahoo, Google and YouTube; Index Ventures, an early investor in Skype; Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong tycoon; and CBS, the US media group, have all taken “small minority” stakes in the start-up. Viacom is also understood to be among the partners, although the nature of its backing has not been disclosed.
As opposed to streaming technology in which all clients get the feed from the server, P2P TV technology differs in the sense that the servers serve only a handful of clients; each of the clients in turn propagate the stream to more downstream clients and so on. This moves the distribution costs from the channel owner to the user.
The Joost service is ad-supported, with advertising analogous to that shown on traditional TV, according to former CEO Fredrik de Wahl.[4] Joost has 40 advertisers, including Sony Pictures, BMW, and Sprite.[5] Aside from injected video-advertisements, it serves additional interactive advertisements via overlays and short pop-ups that are clickable.
On December 17, 2008, Joost sent an email to its customers explaining that the project was moving to a website-only model, and that the Joost application would stop working Friday, December 19.[6]
On November 24, 2009, Adconion Media Group announced that they would be purchasing the company's assets for an undisclosed amount.[7]
Viacom, Inc., and Joost entered into a content provider agreement for the Joost platform on February 20, 2007. Under the agreement, divisions of Viacom (including MTV Networks, BET Networks and Paramount Pictures) will license their "television and theatrical programming" to Joost.[8] This came shortly after Viacom requested 100,000 potentially infringing videos to be removed from YouTube.com, which showed a preference by Viacom for the Joost platform over YouTube.[9]
Joost also currently has licensing agreements in place with Ministry of Sound TV, Aardman Animation, Warner Music, the production company Endemol, Fremantle Media, RDF Media, Diversion Media,[10] CBS[11] and CenterStaging's rehearsals.com.[12] On May 1, 2007, Joost signed a deal to distribute NHL content, including full game replays of the Stanley Cup Finals, and vintage games.[13]
The majority of the content on Joost is restricted to users in the United States of America, due to lack of international licensing arrangements.