Joost

(pronounced ‘juiced’) is a system for distributing TV shows and other forms of video over the Web using peer-to-peer TV technology, created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (founders of Skype and Kazaa).

Joost began development in 2006. Working under the code name “The Venice Project,” Zennström and Friis have assembled teams of some 150 software developers in about a half-dozen cities around the world, including New York, London, Leiden and Toulouse. Joost’s CTO is Dirk-Willem van Gulik.[1]

The teams are currently in negotiations with FOX networks. It has 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.

Company representatives have gone on record as saying the name should be pronounced as “juiced”, unlike the Dutch first name Joost, which is pronounced ‘Yohst.’

Technology
P2PTV overlay network serving three video streams.
P2PTV overlay network serving three video streams.

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 additional set top 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 current version of the software is based on XULRunner and the audio management re-uses the ZAP Media Kit. The peer to peer layer comes from the Joltid company, which also provided the peer to peer layer of Skype. The video playback utilizes the CoreCodec, CoreAVC H.264 video decoder.

[edit] Financing

[edit] Joost development

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 announces that they have raised 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.

[edit] Content distribution

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 will be ad-supported, with advertising analogous to that shown on traditional TV, according to CEO Fredrik de Wahl.[4]

[edit] Availability

Currently, the software is in an open beta stage; an invite is required to become a user. However, a new stage of the beta was announced on May 1st, and all users were given unlimited invitations.[5] Linux is not yet supported.

[edit] Programming Content

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 programing” to Joost.[6] 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.[7]

Joost also currently has licensing agreements in place with Ministry of Sound TV, Warner Music, the production company Endemol[8], Diversion Media[9], CBS[10] and CenterStaging’s rehearsals.com[11]. On May 1, 2007, Joost signed a deal to distribute NHL content, including full game replays of the Stanley Cup Finals, and vintage games.[12]

[edit] Channels

The Joost applications includes three special channels What’s Popular, Search, and Joost Suggests which offers services, like searching the channel list or gathering statistics about channels, that can be used to find a channel that can be viewed. Apart from that, it also lists a number of channels serving various genres of content.[13]

[edit] History

[edit] Timeline

* 2006, October: The Venice Project announced.
* 2006, December: Invitation-only beta testing began.
* 2007, January 16: Officially announce real name, “Joost”[14]
* 2007, February 17: Macintosh beta testing began
* 2007, February 20: Viacom announces that it will be a “key partner” in television programming for Joost.
* 2007, March 7: CHUM Television announces its partnership with Joost to provide content, the majority of which to come from MuchMusic.
* 2007, April 5: Joost opens the newest beta version 0.9.1 to many new users, however bugs prevail and problems with playback now exist.
* 2007, April 10: Joost releases beta 0.9.2 to remove a hard-coded security certificate. Previous versions no longer run.
* 2007, April 24: Joost releases beta 0.9.4
* 2007, May 1: Joost releases beta 0.10.1 , granting existing beta users the ability to invite up to 999 peers to try Joost.
* 2007, May 9: Joost releases beta 0.10.2

[edit] See also

* Internet television
* Democracy Player
* TVUPlayer
* Babelgum
* Zattoo