Joost
Encyclopedia
Joost is an Internet TV service, created by Niklas Zennström
and Janus Friis
(founders of Skype
and Kazaa
). During 2007-8 Joost used peer-to-peer TV technology
to distribute content to their Mozilla
-based desktop player; in late 2008 this was migrated to use a Flash-based Web player instead.
Joost began development in 2006. Working under the code name "The Venice Project", Zennström and Friis assembled teams of some 150 software developers in about six cities around the world, including New York
, London
, Leiden and Toulouse
. According to Zennström at a 25 July 2007 press conference about Skype
held in Tallinn, Estonia, Joost had signed up more than a million beta testers, and its launch was scheduled for the end of 2007.
The team signed up with Warner Music, Indianapolis Motor Speedway Productions (Indianapolis 500
, IndyCar Series
) and production company Endemol
for the beta. In February 2007, Viacom
entered into a deal with the company to distribute content from its media properties, including MTV Networks
, BET
and film studio Paramount Pictures
.
The program is based on P2PTV
technology and is expected to deliver (relaying) near-TV resolution
images. It turns a PC into an instant on-demand TV without any need for an additional set-up box. News updates, discussion forums, show ratings, and multi-user chat sessions (often linked to the active stream/channel) are made possible through the use of semi-transparent widget
overlays.
The initial version of the software was based on XULRunner
and the audio management re-uses the ZAP Media Kit. The peer to peer layer for on-demand video comes from the Joltid company, which also provided the peer to peer layer of Skype. A peer to peer layer for live video was developed from scratch, with a first trial run broadcasting March Madness
2008. The video playback utilizes the CoreCodec, CoreAVC
H.264
video decoder.
Joost soft launched its Widget API on August 29, 2007 under a non-copyleft open source license and encourages third party developers to create tools for its TV 2.0 platform.
In 2009 Joost released a special site of joost for the PlayStation 3 internet browser that took advantage of some of the internet browser's full screen and 'x' button capabilities. By holding the 'x' button you can choose various video options using the d-pad.
acquired Skype in 2005, which easily covered the development and marketing cost of their Joost venture.
Just a week after launching the service, the founders announced that they had raised an additional $45 million. Sequoia Capital
, which backed Yahoo, Google
and YouTube
; Index Ventures, an early investor
in Skype
; Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong
tycoon; and CBS
, the US media group, have all taken “small minority” stakes in the start-up.
Viacom
is also understood to be among the partners, although the nature of its backing has not been disclosed.
The Joost service is ad-supported, with advertising analogous to that shown on traditional TV, according to former CEO Fredrik de Wahl.
Joost has 40 advertisers, including Sony Pictures, BMW, and Sprite. Aside from injected video-advertisements, it serves additional interactive advertisements via overlays and short pop-ups that are clickable.
, BET Networks
and Paramount Pictures
) will license their "television and theatrical programming" to Joost. This came shortly after Viacom requested 100,000 potentially infringing videos to be removed from YouTube.com, which showed a preference by Viacom for the Joost platform over YouTube.
Joost also currently has licensing agreements in place with Ministry of Sound TV, Aardman Animation, Warner Music, the production company Endemol
, Fremantle Media, RDF Media
, Diversion Media, CBS
and CenterStaging's rehearsals.com. On May 1, 2007, Joost signed a deal to distribute NHL content, including full game replays of the Stanley Cup
Finals, and vintage games.
The majority of the content on Joost is restricted to users in the United States of America, due to lack of international licensing arrangements.
Niklas Zennström
Niklas Zennström is an entrepreneur best known for founding several high-profile online ventures with Janus Friis including Skype and Kazaa. More recently he founded the investment group Atomico and has become a significant figurehead for entrepreneurs in the tech sector.-Career:Zennström started...
and Janus Friis
Janus Friis
Janus Friis is a Danish entrepreneur best known for co-founding the file-sharing application KaZaA, and the peer-to-peer telephony application Skype. In September 2005, he and his partner Niklas Zennström sold Skype to eBay for $2.6B...
(founders of Skype
Skype
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system...
and Kazaa
Kazaa
Kazaa Media Desktop started as a peer-to-peer file sharing application using the FastTrack protocol licensed by Joltid Ltd. and operated as Kazaa by Sharman Networks...
). During 2007-8 Joost used peer-to-peer TV technology
P2PTV
The term P2PTV refers to peer-to-peer software applications designed to redistribute video streams in real time on a P2P network; the distributed video streams are typically TV channels from all over the world but may also come from other sources...
to distribute content to their Mozilla
Mozilla
Mozilla is a term used in a number of ways in relation to the Mozilla.org project and the Mozilla Foundation, their defunct commercial predecessor Netscape Communications Corporation, and their related application software....
-based desktop player; in late 2008 this was migrated to use a Flash-based Web player instead.
Joost began development in 2006. Working under the code name "The Venice Project", Zennström and Friis assembled teams of some 150 software developers in about six cities around the world, including New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Leiden and Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
. According to Zennström at a 25 July 2007 press conference about Skype
Skype
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system...
held in Tallinn, Estonia, Joost had signed up more than a million beta testers, and its launch was scheduled for the end of 2007.
The team signed up with Warner Music, Indianapolis Motor Speedway Productions (Indianapolis 500
Indianapolis 500
The Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, also known as the Indianapolis 500, the 500 Miles at Indianapolis, the Indy 500 or The 500, is an American automobile race, held annually, typically on the last weekend in May at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana...
, IndyCar Series
IndyCar Series
The IZOD IndyCar Series is the premier level of American open wheel racing. The current championship, founded by Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony George, began in 1996 as a competitor to CART known as the Indy Racing League . Citing CART's increasing reliance on expensive machinery and...
) and production company Endemol
Endemol
Endemol is an international television production and distribution company based in the Netherlands, with subsidiaries and joint ventures in 23 countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Poland,...
for the beta. In February 2007, Viacom
Viacom
Viacom Inc. , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television...
entered into a deal with the company to distribute content from its media properties, including MTV Networks
MTV Networks
MTV Networks is a division of media conglomerate Viacom that oversees the operations of many television channels and Internet brands, including the original MTV channel in the United States...
, BET
Bet
Bet or BET may refer to:* A wager in gambling* Basic Economics Test * Bet , the second letter in many Semitic alphabets, including Aramaic, Hebrew, Phoenician and Syriac* Brunauer-Emmett-Teller isotherm. See BET_theory...
and film studio Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
.
Technology
P2PTV
The term P2PTV refers to peer-to-peer software applications designed to redistribute video streams in real time on a P2P network; the distributed video streams are typically TV channels from all over the world but may also come from other sources...
technology and is expected to deliver (relaying) near-TV resolution
Display resolution
The display resolution of a digital television or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution is controlled by all different factors in cathode ray tube , flat panel or projection...
images. It turns a PC into an instant on-demand TV without any need for an additional set-up box. News updates, discussion forums, show ratings, and multi-user chat sessions (often linked to the active stream/channel) are made possible through the use of semi-transparent widget
Widget engine
In computer software, a widget engine is a software service available to users for running and displaying applets on a graphical user interface, such as that of the desktop.The widget model in widget engines is attractive because of ease of development...
overlays.
The initial version of the software was based on XULRunner
XULRunner
XULRunner is a runtime environment developed by the Mozilla Foundation to provide a common back-end for XUL-based applications. It replaced the Gecko Runtime Environment, a stalled project with a similar purpose....
and the audio management re-uses the ZAP Media Kit. The peer to peer layer for on-demand video comes from the Joltid company, which also provided the peer to peer layer of Skype. A peer to peer layer for live video was developed from scratch, with a first trial run broadcasting March Madness
NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship
The NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship is a single-elimination tournament held each spring in the United States, featuring 68 college basketball teams, to determine the national championship in the top tier of college basketball...
2008. The video playback utilizes the CoreCodec, CoreAVC
CoreAVC
CoreAVC is a proprietary codec for decoding the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video format.The decoder is currently one of the fastest software decoders, but is slower than hardware-based ones. CoreAVC supports all H.264 Profiles except for 4:2:2 and 4:4:4.CoreAVC now supports two forms of GPU hardware...
H.264
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC is a standard for video compression, and is currently one of the most commonly used formats for the recording, compression, and distribution of high definition video...
video decoder.
Joost soft launched its Widget API on August 29, 2007 under a non-copyleft open source license and encourages third party developers to create tools for its TV 2.0 platform.
In 2009 Joost released a special site of joost for the PlayStation 3 internet browser that took advantage of some of the internet browser's full screen and 'x' button capabilities. By holding the 'x' button you can choose various video options using the d-pad.
Joost development
As co-owners of Skype, Friis and Zennström received part of a $2.6 billion cash payment when eBayEBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
acquired Skype in 2005, which easily covered the development and marketing cost of their Joost venture.
Just a week after launching the service, the founders announced that they had raised an additional $45 million. Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital is a Californian venture capital firm located on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California. The Wall Street Journal has called Sequoia Capital "one of the highest-caliber venture firms", and noted that it is "one of Silicon Valley's most influential venture-capital firms"...
, which backed Yahoo, Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
and YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
; Index Ventures, an early investor
Investor
An investor is a party that makes an investment into one or more categories of assets --- equity, debt securities, real estate, currency, commodity, derivatives such as put and call options, etc...
in Skype
Skype
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system...
; Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
tycoon; and CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, the US media group, have all taken “small minority” stakes in the start-up.
Viacom
Viacom
Viacom Inc. , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television...
is also understood to be among the partners, although the nature of its backing has not been disclosed.
Content distribution
As opposed to streaming technology in which all clients get the feed from the server, P2P TV technology differs in the sense that the servers serve only a handful of clients; each of the clients in turn propagate the stream to more downstream clients and so on. This moves the distribution costs from the channel owner to the user.The Joost service is ad-supported, with advertising analogous to that shown on traditional TV, according to former CEO Fredrik de Wahl.
Joost has 40 advertisers, including Sony Pictures, BMW, and Sprite. Aside from injected video-advertisements, it serves additional interactive advertisements via overlays and short pop-ups that are clickable.
Application discontinued
On December 17, 2008, Joost sent an email to its customers explaining that the project was moving to a website-only model, and that the Joost application would stop working Friday, December 19.Assets sold to Adconion
On November 24, 2009, Adconion Media Group announced that they would be purchasing the company's assets for an undisclosed amount.Programming content
Viacom, Inc., and Joost entered into a content provider agreement for the Joost platform on February 20, 2007. Under the agreement, divisions of Viacom (including MTV NetworksMTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
, BET Networks
Black Entertainment Television
Black Entertainment Television is an American, Viacom-owned cable network based in Washington, D.C.. Currently viewed in more than 90 million homes worldwide, it is the most prominent television network targeting young Black-American audiences. The network was launched on January 25, 1980, by its...
and Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
) will license their "television and theatrical programming" to Joost. This came shortly after Viacom requested 100,000 potentially infringing videos to be removed from YouTube.com, which showed a preference by Viacom for the Joost platform over YouTube.
Joost also currently has licensing agreements in place with Ministry of Sound TV, Aardman Animation, Warner Music, the production company Endemol
Endemol
Endemol is an international television production and distribution company based in the Netherlands, with subsidiaries and joint ventures in 23 countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Poland,...
, Fremantle Media, RDF Media
RDF Media
Zodiak Media is a Anglo-American television production company. It was formed in 2010 when RDF Media Group was acquired by, and merged with Zodiak Entertainment...
, Diversion Media, CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
and CenterStaging's rehearsals.com. On May 1, 2007, Joost signed a deal to distribute NHL content, including full game replays of the Stanley Cup
Stanley Cup
The Stanley Cup is an ice hockey club trophy, awarded annually to the National Hockey League playoffs champion after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Finals. It has been referred to as The Cup, Lord Stanley's Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously as Lord Stanley's Mug...
Finals, and vintage games.
The majority of the content on Joost is restricted to users in the United States of America, due to lack of international licensing arrangements.
Further reading
- Joost ‘opens’ to the public — full review (last100, May 20, 2007)
- Turn up the Joost (bit-tech.net, May 1, 2007)
- Skype Founders' Venice Project Revealed (Business Week, October 5, 2006)
- Nothing to Watch on TV? Streaming Video Appeals to Niche Audiences (NY Times, August 6, 2007)