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Technology news and Jobs arrow Our Blogs arrow The BeerFiles arrow Can Skype founders give net TV a Joost boost?
Can Skype founders give net TV a Joost boost? E-mail
by Stan Beer   
Thursday, 18 January 2007
My son walked in yesterday and asked me what the fuss was all about with this Joost thing. I told him that it’s a new product from the people who invented Skype that would allow him to watch TV on the Internet. His eyes lit up and he said that could mean the end of TV as we know it. If Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis get their way, he could be right.

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The peer-to-peer nature of Joost, where the processing load is shared by the PCs of members, will enable the provision of high quality free global TV broadcasts in the same way that Skype has provided free global Internet telephony.

There is of course the issue of content but already many pundits are saying that content providers will find the prospect of potentially reaching a vast global audience of hundreds of millions irresistible.

What's more, with products coming on the market that enable streaming of PC-based video to TV sets, it appears that Joost may be an idea whose time has come

Joost has already signed a content deal with US-based Warner Music Group which, as demonstrated by its YouTube alliance, has shown a willingness to embrace Internet content delivery of entertainment. Other content deals are already under way.

Speaking of YouTube, some commentators are postulating that Joost is a threat to popular online video site now owned by Google. This is not necessarily the case, although it depends on what type of social networking features Joost provides.

The appeal of YouTube in the main is the ability of users to post and access predominantly short videos. Although many users watch pirated copies of TV shows on the site, the picture quality is generally substandard and not a threat to real TV.

Joost on the other hand reportedly has the capability to provide broadcast quality video and intends from the outset to fund its operation by advertising, using the free to air commercial TV model.

However, in order to get content providers to jump on board, Joost would have to provide guarantees against the piracy and copyright infringement which has dogged YouTube. The noises coming from the Joost camp seems to indicate that this would the case.

Right now, there is a mad scramble from enthusiastic net users all over the world to become beta testers for the new Joost service. The world is watching whether the pair of Internet billionaires who brought us Kazaa and then Skype can emulate or even top their previous successes with Joost.{moscomment}

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The Beerfiles IT BLOG BeerFiles is an in-your-face and sometimes irreverent blog concerning all things to do with IT, technology, people and the media from the point of view of a hard boiled technology journalist and commentator.
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