The IP Development Network Blog

Joost went to full beta this week, something that was met with barely concealed scorn by the majority of commentators for whom the service is now very much yesterday's next big thing. Reading the 30 or so comments on TechCrunch is a window on how people perceive the initiative.

Arrington: "They really milked the notion of a “private beta” to the extreme. To the point where I sort of lost respect for them, actually."

Comment #3: "There’s no Joost buzz/hype left anymore. They’re old news"

Comment #8: "I was an early beta tester … well … sort of … played with the app for about 30 minutes three times and did not like it. Removed it from my laptop and never looked back."

Comment #9:"I tried to use this thing a few times and it never really grabbed my attention. I have not removed it but have not used it for months"

To be fair, these are balanced by the odd positive response, but nearly two thirds are saying that they tried it, didn't like it and won't be going back. This is a sample and a very unscientific one at that, but what is clear is that after the Peak of Inflated Expectation earlier this year, Joost is now sliding rapidly down the Trough of Disillusionment. Can they rise up the Slope of Enlightenment to the Plateau of Productivity...? I don't know.

What have they been doing over the summer?
It could be argued that the Joost team have been beavering away, doing the dirty work behind the scenes to lay the foundations for a solid future. Clearly, they have been adding content partners - Major League Baseball stands out as one that offers fresh, niche content (to non-US residents). They have also done a lot of work on the interface making that more attractive and are evolving their ability to add widgets and link with the rest of the web.

All of which is good - if you ignore the expectations that were set earlier this year.

Check off the new content partners with their three month goals laid out in the leaked document earlier this year. Hmm... ITV: no. BBC: no. C4: no. I could go on, but it could be a bit embarrassing. Sure they closed MLB, but they weren't even on the list and if ever there was a sport that the US struggled to export, baseball is it (sorry Cuba). Has Joost become a dumping ground for rights that cannot be sold onto satellite platforms?

For me however, the major disappointment is the continued lack of a linear TV offering. Perhaps I don't get the idea of on-demand and am stuck in a timewarp, but I see on-demand as a catchup service complementing linear TV, not a standalone offering. What do I want to watch today? Do I really need to think about it?

A pregnant pause?
I have not written on Joost since the summer because there has been very little to write about. It has been very, very quiet... Volpi came in as CEO and clearly circled the waggons in preparation for this week's launch. From where they were (open, exciting and fresh) the silence was all the more notable.

It is to be expected when a new person comes into any job that they will want to review where they are and where they are going but this always risks losing momentum. Especially when the new boss has some different ideas of his own. Is what we are seeing a sort of horrible compromise?

As I said at the time, Volpi clearly sees Joost as a platform: "What Joost is, is a ... high quality ad-supported ... secure ... cost-effective delivery platform." Not the TV station that the concept started out as and what consumers have been led to expect. It is this expectation that is now fuelling the disillusionment because you probably cannot have it both ways.

Where to next?
In the platform model, you are not the be all and end all: you are not the end product. What you are is the operating system; something that needs a set of more exciting products that run over your platform. In Joost's case this is content. In Microsoft's case, this is Office and IE.

Joost as a platform offers a bridge between the content community and the networks. We can see where they are with the content community, what we can't see is where they are with the networks. If a bridge is not anchored on both sides, it falls into the river. Is this happening to Joost?

It is too early to say. What we don't know is what they have up their sleeves. If they can get to a point in 6 months time where they have anchored the bridge with a network provider or two - offering much improved performance to an ISPs subscribers (HD perhaps) - then the content side will follow. That is what I am looking for and why I am not yet writing them off.

The unexploited asset
The ad platform offers a huge upside over broadcast if Joost is inside the ISP because the ads can be matched to the subscriber base and deliver much improved hit rates. If they spend the next 6 months incrementally adding content and bug fixing as they have over the summer, they may well fizzle out.

They have to create the virtuous circle or they will be caught in the crossfire between content and networks. They are probably reaching the point on the content side where they cannot go much further without addressing the other side of the loop. They still have time, but they no longer have the time to market advantage that they had a year ago when The Venice Project was initially announced.

In all, it has been a bad week for Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. They may well have $530m more than they had at the start of it, but they have taken a beating on two fronts and their reputations have been damaged. Clearly they now have a bit more time on their hands to work on Joost...

This may be a good thing, it may not. Volpi has started down a path that is different from the one that Zennstrom and Friis foresaw when they came up with Joost as the son-of-Skype. It was expected that the duo would take-on the TV industry, but where they have found themselves is in a position where they have to work on the inside - supporting the needs of both content creator and network distributor. Are they all on the same page or is Volpi out on a limb? Only time will tell...

Labels: Joost

# posted by Jeremy Penston @ 10/03/2007 11:43:00 AM

Wednesday, 3 October 2007

Joost: Does Anyone Care Anymore?