Joost Beta

I signed up for Joost's beta program earlier this year and was excited to get an activation notice from them late last week.  The Joost promise is "The magic of television, with the power of the internet built right in. Joost puts you in control, and TV will never be the same again."  I was intrigued...

After playing around with Joost a bit this weekend I have to say the results were mixed.  It's important to keep in mind that this is just a beta stage, so I'm hoping they'll smoothing things out before a formal launch.  To truly be successful and pull in the mass market, however, Joost will need to work on overall reliability.  There were far too many times when the screen would get grainy or simply freeze.  Again, I know it's just a beta, so my fingers remained crossed.

On the plus side, when the system worked it worked quite well.  There were some points where I felt like I was watching a DVD on my screen; pretty impressive and a much better experience than you'd typically get with something like YouTube, for example.  Also, all my testing was done via wireless, which made the high points even more impressive.

I plan to check back in on Joost from time to time to revisit the service level issues as well as the depth and breadth of content, which also was about where you'd expect it during a beta.

Comments

[Corvida]

Any invites to share?

Nice to get a bit a knowledge about the program. Seems it's not all it's being hyped up to be and maybe THAT'S why it's invite only.

[Joe Wikert]

Nothing to share, I'm afraid. I only applied for the one ID and plan to keep it private. Again, in Joost's defense, it *is* still in beta and it's probably unrealistic to think it would be bug-free at this point. That said, I'd like to think they wouldn't open up to more testers till they get these bandwidth/quality issues taken care of.

[Herbert]

This is what is says on their site:

How to get Joost

To use Joost, you must have an invitation from an existing user. Until you receive an invite, you won't be able to download the software. But don't worry - there are lots of invites out there, with many more coming soon. Here are some ways you can get hold of one:
Ask a friend!

If you know someone who's already using Joost, ask them for an invite - every user automatically gets a certain number of tokens to invite new people to join.
Watch the blogs.

Lots of Joost users are already blogging or commenting on stories about Joost - get involved, play nice and they may send an invite your way.

Good luck! We look forward to watching TV with you soon. Meanwhile, don't forget to sign up for our newsletter - we'll keep you informed about all the

[Joe Wikert]

Fair enough. I had to get my account the old-fashioned way...I waited in line as a beta applicant. But if existing users can nominate new testers I'll do what I can. If you'd like me to submit your name/e-mail address for their consideration, drop me a message at jwikert@gmail.com.

[Joe Wikert]

I received several e-mails from readers asking for invites to Joost. I gave out all the invites Joost provided, so if you didn't get one, feel free to check back with me in a few weeks to see if they've given me more to send out.

[roberto]

rrbustos@euskalnet.net i would like too.... thanks (joost)

[Mike Ramos]

I hear invites are hard to come by. Wanna share?

[Joe Wikert]

Hi Mike. See my earlier note above. I'm all out of invites for now and have asked those who sent me e-mails to check back in a few weeks to see if Joost has issued any more.

[shqiptaria]

Ples send her too invites joost ...

Thanks joost shqiptariagbox@gmail.com