>With Liberty And Joostice For All! Introducing Joost: The Magical TV Application You Were Missing
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As an official beta tester for Joost, 2 Live Fools figured it was about time to actually let y’all in on what’s happening with this pretty damn cool concept, and company. So, in addition to kicking the tires on this eight-month-old upstart (with bugs still needing fixed), we made a few calls, and put together an introduction to this crazy company that we hope will be the beginning of a new way to think when it comes to watching your favorite TV programming (or even your soon-to-be-favorite TV programming). [But would it be ‘TV’ programming if it’s on the computer? I wonder. How about ‘TechVision’?]
First of all, what is Joost you may ask? Joost is a descendant from a long line of animals that have inherited the Earth. He comes from the species Google-opolis, and the ever popular Amazonian-Yahoo! Actually, its one of the first real Internet television service that is destined to be the next major competitor to cable TV, but with only one slight difference–it’s free. Well, sort of. Nothing is really free as we all know, but these guys at least are getting their advertisers to pay for everything and have just announced this week as having lined up several blue-chip ad-placers, including United Airlines, Coca Cola, Taco Bell, Microsoft, Sony Electronics, Intel, Hewlit Packard, Lions Gate Entertainment, General Motors and Unilever, as it prepares for its debut.
Is Joost the next best thing since the internet? (no, that’s digital paper) but it is a great beginning…
Joost peaked our interest last year when Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, the entrepreneur dudes behind Skype (an Internet telephony service now owned by eBay), and Kazaa (a peer-to-peer network that became the second bane of the music industry after Napster), disclosed that they were working on an Internet video project. Joost’s commercial launch was set for Tuesday May 2nd, [31 days after ‘2 Live Fool’s second anniversary!] with the beta trial beginning last December, but a legal issue is currently holding it. When you consider that the content deliverer offers many genres of programming on over 100 channels from major providers like CBS, and many Viacom programs (i.e. MTV, VH1, BET, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central), you’ll clearly see why Viacom and others are working hard to close down “free” video sharing sites like YouTube from having their valuable content. Additionally, the company has also signed deals with Sony Music and other major record labels to play music videos.
For now, programming is available free (free forever until free means something else) at Joost.com to anyone who knows someone who is currently in the beta test. It’s still unclear if they are planning to continue this ‘invite-only’ mentality that is very similar to Google’s Gmail where you have to know a member to be a member. Once you have the software, full screen, broadcast quality TV-like content plays on your computer.
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Brad Elders, Joost’s senior VP of sales, told 2 Live Fools that the company would follow an ad to edit ratio of no more than three minutes per 60 minutes of programming, “to strip out the clutter of network TV.” In recent experience with the beta version, ads strangely pop up at somewhat random, or time sensitive periods instead of waiting for the natural break in the presentation. We’re still in beta, and hopefully this will be resolved before official public availability.
Joost users will also be invited to provide information about themselves and their personal interests (sound familiar?). That will allow advertisers to steer their ads to individual Joost viewers, avoiding some of the wasted spending that occurs with conventional television, when people with no interest in a certain product sit through the commercials. Heck, this has been happening on the web for years now and we suppose you might as well see ads that are interesting to you instead of sitting through tampon commercial after cell phone commercial after make-up commercial…
Elders said advertisers would use “introstitials” instead of pre-rolls. Introstitials, a word Joost coined, refers to brief “brought to you by” messages that will play before programs start, followed by three :30s playing during a 30 minute program. Each program will have only one advertiser initially, he said.
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Advertisers can play traditional TV spots, but they can take advantage of original executions Joost has developed “to add interactivity to the experience,” Elders said. Ads can run with an overlay that allows viewers to click for more information. “If viewers want tips on the product, they can click and the video behind it will stop and they go into the ad experience in a deeper way,” Elders said. The overlay will look like a logo that appears at the top of the screen.
Another new execution is the “hand raiser,” a small box that appears on the page that can be clicked to take users to a menu of branded content they can play.
Joost has worked with more than 20 agencies to develop campaigns for their clients using the new interactive ad formats Joost has developed provide advertisers with the opportunity to use the overlay to interface with consumers. The advertisers have signed up for a three-month trial period, during which various advertising formats will be tested, said Nick Loria, Joost’s senior VP for global advertising.
“There’s so much that’s not known about how consumers will use this media,†Loria said. “And there’s so much interest among clients in how they will use it.â€
El Senor Loria declined to say how much advertisers were paying, but folks briefed on the company’s negotiations with the ad agencies said the cost for three months was $50,000 for ads to appear only in the United States, and $100,000 for those to be shown globally.
Todd Chanko, a JupiterResearch
For certain major brands, advertising on Joost makes sense because their products identify with the medium, For HP and Intel, “they have an obligation to appear on the cutting edge and as for Nike, Joost is a venue for music video, so they’re counting on it to deliver the same type of audience as MTV,” Chanko said.
“For Joost, it’s a different story,” he said. “Will they upend the traditional TV model? Probably not. There’s still the issues of individuals having to download the software and have PCs that can run it. They have to go through the trouble as opposed to going to YouTube or streaming episodes of Desperate Housewives. Joost is still competing with the multi-channel video services, cable and satellite TV. In that sense, whether they have advertising partners or not, they have a long way to go. But it’s very impressive and proactive that they have sponsors and programmers on board.” With products such as the Apple-TV, Joost has some intelligent tap dancing to do to get their programming on home entertainment systems. While the world is working to get content off of their systems and onto their home theater, Joost has to work on the delivery system.
Us Fools like to think a little more about the bigger picture and, of course, tying this into your Apple TV is a no-brainer. But the first company to open the minds of us viewers will change the way the world spins in the content world. Joost seems to be that company after many a mind has been discussing this ad-based content model for years now, not to mention the right number of broadband users in the world who you need to make this work. Whether they stick around for a few years and are bought for a couple billion smackers isn’t the point. They were the first to the future, therefore, they win.
Right now, the bugs are still being worked out and as far as speed, the overall picture flow is choppy, but check out a decent review of Joost by beta tester Stan Schroeder at franticindustries.com
Joost surprised us personally when we first started watching. Our own fool David C. Fein worked for months on the picture and sound restoration of the entire Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon series for DVD and future television presentation. We were shocked, surprised and impressed when we were able to watch our work as part of the premiere programming for Joost. So today, you can get Joosted up for The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, or purchase the DVDs from Amazon. Either way, it’s great to see classic animation living on!
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