Hey Matt,

great test, grear product. But what will actually the final product look like, in terms of type of content offered?

Will you offer live TV channels like Zattoo? Or live events, eg sports ? Or news? Etc.

What will eventually be "on"? And where?

If I understand correctly, your test with CBS next week is actually NOT about retransmitting an EXISTING live channel from CBS, but creating a NEW live stream from an event?

Q.H.

Hi Q.H.,
The Joost LIVE Test with March Madness is exactly the same feed that CBS is streaming online. The only different is that we'll deliver it over our peer-to-peer infrastructure.

As for our future content, we're not quite there yet - we're going to focus on providing a stable live service first.

Hi Kerry,

thanks a lot for the information. I definitely look forward to future tests and your (hopefully) growing content offerings.

Does that mean that Joost takes the same streams that are also availavle on the *website* of CBS, or do your take *the actual live TV signal* from satellite or cable?

It would make a big difference (well, at least for me).

It may well be that for CBS the two are the same (but don't think they retransmit the actual live TV signal 1:1 on the website and in real time), but in general the streams offered on the websites of TV stations are *not* the same as the actual live TV signal that I can watch on my regular TV set. Typically, the streams on the TV stations's websites are stored news shows from the day before, that can then be viewed demand for some time, typically for one to several weeks.

My hunch is that by taking the streams from the website, Joost is safe from a legal point of view (since the streams are *already* available to everyone on the web), but of course the more interesting content would be the actual live TV signal. I believe this is what Zattoo is doing.

So, what is going to come from Joost in the foreseeable future?

Best regards,
Q.H.

Hi Q.H.,
For March Madness, we will be streaming live and in real-time. The stream will NOT be on demand - that means if you miss a great play, for example, you will not be able to slide back and watch it again (but hopefully the broadcast would have a replay!).

We're distributing the web feeds for March Madness, but they are the same as the TV feeds - the only difference is the advertising.

Thanks a lot. I look forward to the March Madness test later on today. Can't wait to see it.

Of course, in the future it would be really interesting to have the ability to "tune in" to any channel that is also available on regular TV, not just individual events. That way I just need to look up the regular TV programming guide to see what's on. My belief is that linar TV won't go away anytime soon, and consumers will want to have both linear TV and on-demand viewing. Not every consumer will want to invest time in actively searching for his or her favorite content, but there are also couch potatoes (or shall we call them "PC potatoes" now?) and those who would want to watch TV on the PC on background mode, while doing something else.

OK, so I have now spent about 45min to participate in the public Joost LIVE Test with March Madness. The test was a complete failure. Here is why:

1) Stream viewing: In 45min of trying really hard to watch SOMETHING I managed to view a live stream only about three times total. Each time it was only for 3-5 secondsbefore an error message appeared saying that the signal was lost.

2) User experience: In general, the user experience was cumbersome - although somewhat better than previous versions of the player which was dreadful to use. Most of the time the Joost player did not react well to my mouse clicks, as if the program was clogging my computer's resources. Very limited responsiveness. Also, at times it would do something that I didn't want it to do. But the worst was that very soon I get lost in all the bells and whistles around thea actual viewing area, menus appearing, etc. Hello, what were the designers thinking?? Honestly, this is way way way too complicated for the average user I would say. And I am using computers for 25 years now. By comparison, both Livestation and Zattoo have much simpler yet functional and powerful user interfaces. Recommendation to Joost: Just do away with all the fancy effects and bells and whistles that, frankly, do more damage than good.

3) Channel selection: At first, I wasn't sure which games were live, and which were scheduled at a later time. Eventually I noticed that underneath some of the thiumbnail pictures, there was a text written in *very small* font, saying "Today..." and then an illegible time next to it and with a red bar below it. I guessed (rightly) that these were the ones that were currently streamed live. Now, that is exactly NOT how I would like to engage in detective work. All I really want is a list of channels, period. Not to guess which are live and which are on-demand.

In summary:

I think it is a great idea in principle. But it hasn't worked for me today. The interface is too slow and also way too complex, at least for my taste. My recommendation: Just take away all the fancy graphic effects, and just give me a simple channel list, like Livestation and Zattoo - that is really ALL I want. It took me way way too long to actually get to watch a streams (which then didn't work - ok, but that may well be because it is the first trial), too many things were going on on the screen, etc.

Sorry, I was trying, but for the time being, this is a clear thumbs down. Happy to try another time. Good luck!!

Hi Q.H.,
Thanks for the feedback - it is really helpful and we appreciate it.

We had some difficulties during the second half of the first set of games - I've commented on them at http://www.joost.com/forums/p/2008/03/march-madness-on-joost/.

Hope you can continue to help us test, and provide your feedback, throughout the tournament.

Sure, no problem. Happy to test again. Hope my feedback wasn't too harsh, but that is how I experienced it. I kow it is very difficult to build a working solution. Good luck!

Q.H. - one last thing that might help you with determining the start time of the games.

When you are in the Explore section of Joost, there's a slider on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. If you move that slider to the right, the show titles (in this case, the games) will get bigger - much bigger. Then you can scroll up and down the list using the arrows on the right side.