What future for joost ? My analysis of this new TV concept.

I was one of the happy few that tested Joost when the first beta were released. I work in the broadcast video industry and especially in the mobile TV industry so I’ve been following the TV market evolution quite closely.

When I first heard about Joost, I couldn’t help but try to understand what live TV and videos spread over a peer to peer network could bring new compared to the existing video services. We have plenty of choices to watch TV or videos at home or over the Internet. So what is new with Joost ? For the end-user the final content delivered to him is the same and the success of Youtube brought a new of way of consuming video which is quite different.

Here is my analysis of the pros and cons of the concept:

—— PROS ——

1 - Joost moves the bandwidth requirements from the server end to the end users

Joost technology is based on a peer to peer network. There will be server sources for at least to start the channels distribution ans especially the standard TV Channels but these will deliver content to some clients that will then relay it throught the P2P Network.

As Internet access bitrates are increasing very fast, that is a good point and won’t be much of a problem in the future. We must admit that a “standard” internet user that uses a high bitrate Internet connection don’t use even 10% of the bandwidth capacity. And of course this reduces the cost of bandwidth compared to services like youtube. For centralized servers like youtube, the bandwidth needs are directly proportional to the number of users and for video streaming this increases very fast and could get very expensive.

2 - Joost will offer a wide variety of TV channels or over forms of video

From worldwide channels to small videos, you should be able to watch anything you want based on your preferences. That is a really good point as this uses the best of “standard” TV we know from many years and the best of new ways of consuming TV which is user oriented.

3 - Joost will deliver TV like image quality

Joost designers claims that the image quality will be very close to classical TV quality. That’s a good point compared to Youtube wich hosts numerous bad quality videos. From what I noticed the image is not so good but maybe this is because the software is still in beta. Also the quality will depend on the channels.

4 - Business Model

Joost will make money by delivering targeted and interactive ads when you start watching TV or while you’re watching a program. Frequency depends on the length of the program. On the music channel “IMF” you have some short advertising that sometimes appear in between two song clips. Some channels starts with an advert.

—— CONS ——

1 - Joost is delivered as a windows software

Contrary to Youtube, to access the channels and videos you will need to install joost on your machine and log in using your personal infos. This makes it harder to share, promote and recommend content to a maximum number of persons for instance by sending an email.

Also one of the main reason of the success of Youtube is that it offers to publish any video very easily on any website by simply copying and pasting a HTML code. Will Joost offer such feature ? I don’t think so.

2 - TV channels are already accessible through over distribution pipes.

Today you can find many kind of video/TV distribution models. To watch “standard” TV channels at home, you could to do it ever using a simple antenna to receive broadcasted channels, using cable TV (with a special set top box), using your Internet connection and a special set top box that is able to display streamed TV, using a satellite dish to catch hundreds of free an paying channels, and finally using Video on Demand over the Internet or the cable.

I don’t know if people are ready to watch real TV channels through their computers. Watching TV is an old habit that is very often shared also in front of a TV set.

So why would you watch MTV (with probably more ads) on a computer with the risk of getting less quality where as you can watch it your TV set?

I think these channels are a essential for Joost to appeal and attract people to download the software.

3 - Computer and Internet is for fast consuming habits

Today with the the success of the Internet all over the world, the way content and information is consumed has completely changed. Now every thing has to be straight to the essential, fast, easy to read. Browsing the Internet brings all that, you click and Interact, you watch a video for 2 minutes then switch to your favorite blog, etc. I don’t see how Joost will feet in this. Because when the application is opened, you can’t do anything else as it’s best viewed full screen and not integrated in a web browser. You can’t chat with your friends or check your emails while your watching your favorite Joost channel. This is something very specific to computer habits.

I know Joost offers chatting, voting, forums and instant messaging by using transparent widgets in the application interface but it’s quite a closed environment. It’s all within Joost.

4 - Would you mind if adverts were inserted in Youtube videos ?

Joost will be delivering adverts in different places. It could be in the middle of the videos or at the beginning. It is also added through content related interactivity that will be proposed while you’re watching a channel. This will redirect you to website or any content if you click on it.

5 - Peer to Peer is just used to reduce bandwidth costs

You won’t be able of course to download the content as you would be able to do it with a peer to peer sharing software.

6 - You won’t be able to publish your video

You’re not currently allowed to published your content, your video. Maybe that will change in the future I don’t know but tha’s a huge difference with Youtube.

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Anyway I’m quite sure Joost will have a great success but not the one Youtube experienced. The interface is nice, there will be plenty of video choices and people will be able to interact on the content. So wait and see !

Stumble it!