Joost Launches: Video Interview With Mike Volpi
Joost, the impeccably pedigreed, funded, and hyped Internet TV platform is releasing its software to the general public on Monday. For those of you beta testers (like us) who've griped about the reliability and usability of the application …
Context & Ripple Effects
Joost's path to this Monday's general release has been a five-month slow roll: a near-launch in May 2007 that stayed invite-only, followed by NewTeeVee's finding that the beta was error-prone and rough to use. The company now drops the invitation requirement entirely, opening comedy, music videos, documentaries and movies to anyone who downloads the client.
The stakes are bigger than one app: as of mid-2007, Joost is regarded as the leader among internet-TV services, with Babelgum, Veoh TV and Netflix all gunning for YouTube from the opposite direction — full-length professional shows rather than short clips — while CEO Mike Volpi aims to route around the cable operators he once sold networking gear to at Cisco.
First-order effects
- Every internet user can now download Joost without an invite, so the beta-era reliability and usability complaints become first impressions for a mass audience instead of gripes among insiders.
- Volpi's strategy of bypassing Comcast and Time Warner Cable moves from closed test to open market: Joost is now directly competing for living-room viewing time on consumer broadband connections.
Second-order effects
- Babelgum, Veoh TV and Netflix face a fully public rival in the long-form video market they are all building against YouTube, raising pressure on their own distribution and content deals.
- Cable operators lose nothing yet but see a funded challenger positioning itself to deliver television over their pipes without paying them carriage economics; the rumored talks to embed Joost in set-top boxes and TVs would deepen that threat if confirmed.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, television distribution starts splitting between the cable bundle and downloadable client applications over open broadband, shifting gatekeeping power from network operators toward whoever controls the software layer on the screen.
- The bet also tests whether professionally produced long-form video needs a dedicated application at all, versus browser-based streaming — an unresolved question across the whole 2007 field of IPTV startups.
The trend: Internet TV in 2007 is consolidating into a race between dedicated client platforms delivering full-length professional programming, with Joost's public launch as its most heavily pedigreed entrant.