Joost Invitations Now Available
I don’t normally do posts on Wednesdays, but late Tuesday night something exciting occured with Joost.
Joost just released a ton of new content yesterday, (see their blog) and to top it off they have given us beta testers unlimited invitations to send out. Here’s how to get yours:
Sign up as a commenter. The e-mail address you supply when you sign up will be the address I send your invitation to – this is only a security measure to help protect your e-mail account, as the spam bots regularly crawl/plague my site. And that’s it, you’re done!
I promise to never, ever spam your account.
*Note: If you signed up as a user before this post, please notify me (with a comment or an e-mail) that you would like an invite. I can’t tell if you signed up for my RSS feed or for a Joost invite. Thanks!
Related links:
Congrats Cpoto
I had 32 spam comments directed to the Joost post 
but only one, lonely (and legitimate) comment posted. Your invite will arrive later this evening. Thanks for playing!
Joost Invitation Drawing
I have one Joost invite left. In order to get to know you better, I am holding a fun little drawing for it. All you have to do is introduce yourself in the comments below.
What do you do for a living? Are you a student, or a 9 to 5er? Where are you from? Write a little bit about your hobbies or interests. One person will be randomly selected from all the comments posted by the end of Monday, April 30th. The winner will be announced on next Tuesday’s post and the invitation sent out that evening. Good luck!
Joost from an HTPC Geek’s View
Today’s guest post comes from Peter Lowe, a self-proclaimed Home Theater Personal Computer geek who looked deeper into Joost and how well it interacts with his HTPC setup. Thanks Peter!
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Joost: First Impressions
I just got invited to the Joost beta. I’d been looking forward to trying it, as I’m a bit of a HTPC geek, and I was curious to see how their take on IPTV would integrate into my setup.
So far, it doesn’t.
Like most people, I watch TV with a remote. I also use a computer for recording and PVR functions, but ultimately it’s still me with the remote in front of the TV screen. Joost’s interface simply doesn’t lend itself to control in this way. You absolutely need a mouse, or some kind of pointing device. I’m not sure if this is a shortcoming of the interface, or simply a consequence of the added functions, but the result is the same. So, right off, Joost disrupts my usual TV experience. Another problem is the text in the interface. Like most computer text, its difficult to read on a standard definition TV. It feels like Joost is herding me to watch its content on my monitor, using the standard computer controls, which seems odd for a TV service. It might be a different story on a high definition screen with a Wiimote, but I have neither.
Service was the other problem. As I surfed through the various channels available, the only thing I could find to watch that looked interesting was some National Geographic channel shows; the very-limited remaining selection was simply uninteresting. When I tried out a few of the National Geographic shows, the connection was so choppy that the shows were unwatchable. Now, I have just started using this, and it’s entirely possible that I’ve misconfigured it, but for now, it’s basically useless.
I will investigate further, both to see if I’ve misconfigured the program (and, if so, I will certainly take another look at the service quality for you), and to see if any more content is forthcoming. The interface and integration issues I’m seeing seem ingrained in the platform, which leaves Joost as an interesting toy I might run occasionally when I’m at my desk, but unlikely to change anything for my TV viewing habits, and certainly not a revolution in TV content delivery. Three yawns.
Related links:
Guest Post about Joost (pending)
I have a guest post coming in from a Home Theater/PC fan, for a different perspective on Joost. Look for it on Tuesday!
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