Joost Releases 0.8.0 Update

Joost updated its 'wares this weekend with version 0.8.0, which includes the first version now available for Intel-based Mac OS X. One of the few products I've seen released lately that was not Universal Binary right from Beta. I suspect it has to do with the new CoreAVC Video decoder, which significantly improves the quality of Joost video. That said, Joost appears to be loosely promising a Universal Binary for RC1.

As for the product itself, the Mac OS X Intel installs and runs pretty smoothly for a 0.8 revision. The UI is sleek, but takes a little getting used to, and lacks logical flow (read: arbitrary). The My Channels browser element is a rather bland one column scrolling list which is rather inefficient and unimaginative for browsing loads of channels. I am certain they can do better with search, browse, and navigate. The stock channels are fun and the episodes launch immediately, giving you an experience quite similar to flipping through channels on a real TV. Quite natural in that regard. Perhaps their strongest achievement indeed. But is this enough to establish a sustainable advantage that is strong enough to garner real market share in this already crowded sector? I'm most interested to see how this will stack up against Apple TV, and a slew of existing competitors like BitTorrent, and Google/YouTube.

Joost can deliver higher resolution video than most consumer offerings today, and fast. No need to deal with downloading torrent files, then switching to a content viewer, and then back to torrent download for each video. Very cumbersome compared to Joost. However, this is still just a well executed feature-- not a product, nor a business...yet. Functionality must yield social incentive, which then follows content as king in this business. After Joost'ing just about all the channels in the Beta, I'm still left wondering what will be the "hook" with Joost that will keep me coming back for more. If the service backbone can scale to the likes of BitTorrent's mesh, they've got to then differentiate themselves with more clever social experience (read: incentives) to drive adoption and contribution to the Joost channel line-up, while beating everyone else to the best quasi-commercial content available. Tall order indeed.

And let us not forget what happened when Microsoft, at arms length, launched Wallop.