Joost around the corner
Have you heard of Joost, a novel way to watch TV on your computer?
I read about it the other day, and I'm waiting to put my hands on a Joost beta since. So I don't have Joost yet, and everything that follows about comes not from a hands on experience, just from a certain anticipation.

(for background info check wikipedia entry on Joost)
For a review of Joost on youtube.


Joost is a way to watch streaming TV "à la carte" (on demand) with a "broadcast" image quality (think TV, not you tube), choosing from an array of channels that is supposed to grow.
The way it works is taking advantage of P2P: Joost have servers where the TV programming files are stored, but each computer streaming it holds a part of the TV program, so it can be broad casted elsewhere. Using a counter intuitive property of networks, the law of increasing returns: the more people are watching, the more people can watch.
This service will be free, paid for by advertising.
Watching any program, anytime and everywhere you can have an Internet signal, all this for free sound good to you?
It does to me, but probably not to cable and satellite companies, even DVR s and why not, DVD rentals and sales. It all depends on who is willing to hop on the bandwagon. Viacom has: MTV, VH1, paramount or Comedy Central ring a bell ? Probably some of the other brands belonging to this company do too.
So how does Joost manage to strike deals with this big media companies and create this much buzz?
For starters the two guys behind it, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, were also behind Kazaa and Skype, which they sold to eBay for 4.1 Billion dollars total.
So they have the experience of successful companies, technical know how, also deep pockets, and what is arguably a very good idea.
On the downside, there is what seems to be regional restrictions on programming, some of the programs like MTV and Comedy Central are not visible outside the US ( I live in Mexico), advertising might be too intrusive, and the hardware demands, on the GPU mainly, might be more than the average computer can handle.
The other question is : Can it scale Up ? will it hold several million users, not only watching one program, but several thousand different programs ?
My experience with other P2PTV products has been far from good: patchy and irregular reception,low resolution and I had to go trough several programs just to get one to work, but I can see the potential.
So to help you and me decide if this product can hold its promess, I will write on the progress I make with it and share experiences. Apparently, you can't sign up for a beta anymore, ask around to your friends to get an invite.
Hope this post was of interest, pardon my nonnative English, and feel free to leave a comment in this burgeoning blog.

Cheers.