My First Time with Joost

Yesterday I watched Joost for the first time. For anyone who doesn’t know, Joost was built by the guys who brought us Kazaa and Skype. The business model is simple: ads are highly targeted to users based on location, time and content being viewed.

I’ll start with the obvious: Joost is good. Really good. The interface is totally optimized for video. The controls are intuitive and come loaded with features that enhance my viewing experience, like More Info, What’s Next, and Rate this Show. Nothing new here when I compare it to Rogers on Demand on my “other” TV. However, the rating system is nice. Something Rogers doesn’t care about.

There’s My Joost where I can share and invite others, chat and more: think Joost social network. They have a few widgets to help me IM with other Joost members, date and time widgets, and a few others. The creators are relying solely on user ratings. Over time I’ll be able to add my own widgets.

Then there’s My Channels where I can store my favorites. Again, nothing new but the “if you like that you’ll like this” logic is nice.

While Joost is still in BETA there are a couple of hiccups:

1. the content is lame. I didn’t know the Guinness Book of World Records had their own show.

2. the picture quality is inconsistent.

While Joost has done a fabulous job of bringing a whole new video experience to webizens, they need to be more diligent about the content they select and how it appears if they’re going to succeed.

There’s a why reason I bought a HD Plasma TV: it’s called picture quality. And until they fix this issue (they as in my internet provider or the boys from Joost), it’ll be the same old channel surfing habits for me.