Earlier I mentioned Joost as pretty cool streaming video technology with the biggest drawback of not enough content that I’d actually want to watch. Well, in the past few months it looks like they’ve done a ton to alleviate that. I fired up the new client and there’s now enough stuff in there that I could waste a few evenings checking it out.

To really dig into the “long tail” of Joost, you must get beyond the programs they recommend. Click the Channel Catalog icon (on the left) and then All Channels. Via column on the right, scroll through the choices to find a channel you like. After choosing a channel, click Browse Programs to dig deeper (you may need to add the channel).

Anyhow, after a few minutes of deeper hunting, I found a decent short list of stuff I plan to check out:

• CNN has added short documentary like shows - I’m watching one about peak oil as I’m writing this.
• Adult Swim: Harvey Birdman.
• The Cult Comedy Channel: Old episodes of I Love Lucy, The Beverly Hillbillies, and The Dick Van Dike Show.
• The Cult Adventures Channel: Flash Gordon.
• Tons of music videos from around the world on various channels.
• Old episodes of GI Joe and Transformers.
• National Geographic shows.
• Ren and Stimpy.
• The Silent Movies Channel: Old Charlie Chaplin movies.
• The Really Terrible Film Channel: Films so bad, they’re good. Yeah, that has my name on it!

One annoying thing is the networks still seem to only be offering up a few shows as a teaser - not an entire season. If Joost had all the Babylon 5 episodes, that would be huge. I’m unsure if the rest of the episodes will appear at a later date or if the network is holding back - naturally I believe it’s the latter.

The second annoying thing is I’m seeing way more commercials inserted during the shows, but oh well - it’s freaking free. One thing Joost ought to tell their advertisers is it’s way harder to “channel surf” in Joost - meaning, clicking on a new show every second so you’re watching fifty shows simultaneously.

The last thing is the image quality leaves something to be desired but again, it’s freaking free.

Joost also recently added widget functionality to their client. I can sort of understand this as Joost pretty much takes over the whole screen so passive activites like web surfing is hampered. There are basic widgets like chat, ratings, the time, and an RSS feed news reader. Widgets appear with a tasteful, white outline and slightly transparent gray so they don’t interfere with the programs.

So stuff is definitely happening at Joost. I’m not at the point where this replaces other television options but it’s getting darned close. I wonder if they’ll ever add streaming, currently rentable movies (seems like they’re doing so outside of the states)? Even with a few commercials thrown in, that could be a game changer.

Categories: Technology :: Tags: Joost, Video :: Trackback URL
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