Joost, now available in public beta

[Uber_Tiny]

free streaming TV shows, movies and music videos, with a small amount of advertising thrown in. The user interface is smooth and straightforward, and the quality of the video is decent for a streaming service. The selection, for better or for worse, is an unpredictable hodgepodge of current content, decades-old reruns and cult films.

It's no secret that an awful lot of TV shows and movies can be found on file-sharing networks like BitTorrent and Kazaa. It's also no secret that the producers of those shows really, really hate it when people share them without permission.

Is there a way for content makers to cash in on what is a clear consumer desire? Two main draws of using file-sharing networks to trade videos are cost and convenience -- pay nothing, watch whenever you want. If content providers were to meet those two conditions in a legitimate portal that wouldn't put its users at risk of a copyright lawsuit, would viewers mind a little bit of advertising Email Marketing Software - Free Demo thrown into the mix?

Several organizations are attempting to find an answer to that question with online services that give both parties a little of what they want -- convenience for consumers and tight control for producers. NBC and News Corp. have partnered to create Hulu, many TV networks offer shows for free on their home Web pages, and services like Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) Latest News about Apple iTunes and Amazon's (Nasdaq: AMZN) Latest News about Amazon.com Unbox sell TV show downloads for a few dollars apiece.

Another portal, Joost, became available recently as a free public beta. The company generates revenue through advertising and has signed deals with various content providers in order to license TV shows, movies and music videos. Users can view all content for free. The result is a service that makes its ads fairly easy to ignore while offering a wide -- though at times odd -- array of content.

Now Public Beta...

Cool deal, although it has been a while since I last used it because the lack of, if any, new content was a turn off. Now if they were to broadcast live shows like reg TV, I would be more interested. Maybe they are thinking of something like that but subscription based for later down the road. Would be cool to see where this company winds up.

[ame=http://www.google.com/search?q=joost&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a]Joost.com[/ame]

[stonedbob]

I tried it a while ago but all the content sucked indeed :p

[SirBaron]

Yeah tried it when this post was made, and well... it's a bit crap. Time to uninstall me thinks, needs far more content before i'll reinstall.

[Uber_Tiny]

Yeah it was amusing while it was new. But the old old old reruns and quality was a turn off.

Now bring me LIVE TV and I'm in!!