Hello Public
Big day for us at Joost — today Joost is drawing back the curtain and steppin' out. — Haven't been able to score an invite? Now it doesn't matter! Everyone can enjoy a ballooning selection of comedy, music videos, documentaries, movies and the latest hits …
Context & Ripple Effects
Joost's public opening ends an invite-only stretch that began with its near-launch in May, a period when the client drew criticism for being error-prone even as the company was regarded as the leader in television-over-internet services. CEO Mike Volpi has framed the service as a way to bypass cable incumbents like Comcast and Time Warner Cable, chasing long-form professionally produced video rather than YouTube-style short clips.
The launch lands mid-race: June coverage had already cast Joost against Babelgum, with Veoh TV and Netflix also gunning for YouTube's territory via downloadable TV applications. Unconfirmed reports of talks to embed Joost into set-top boxes and TVs hint at where the company wants the platform to live next. Ars Technica's same-day pickup shows how widely the shed-the-invite story travelled.
First-order effects
- Anyone can now download the client without scoring an invite, which immediately exposes the reliability and usability complaints from beta testers to a mass audience.
- Joost converts its status as the perceived leader in internet TV into open-market scale overnight, putting its comedy, music-video, documentary and movie catalog in front of every viewer at once.
Second-order effects
- Rivals Babelgum, Veoh TV and Netflix face pressure to drop their own gates and compete on catalogs and client quality now that the invite scarcity lever is gone.
- Content owners gain a second front door for long-form programming beyond YouTube's clip model, strengthening Volpi's bid to route around Comcast and Time Warner Cable's pipes.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, internet television consolidates around downloadable applications delivering full-length professional shows, forcing both YouTube's short-clip model and cable distributors to defend their ground.
- The rumored set-top-box and embedded-TV talks point toward internet TV migrating from desktop clients onto the living-room screen itself.
The trend: Internet TV is shifting from gated betas to open consumer platforms built around full-length professional content, with Joost's October 2007 opening marking the moment the race left invitation lists behind.