IPTV - The future of Television?

A stimulating article from VOIP Now on the pros and cons of IPTV and its potential.

Content producers:
This means that marginal viewer ship in North America is no longer reason to cancel a show. Some of the best TV shows ever made are now in syndication around the world, and new episodes would no doubt be welcomed.
The Internet can and does support small productions. On the other hand, they now have more competition, since the cost of entry and distribution is greatly reduced.

Viewers:
Variety of content beyond what even Digital TV, with its 600 channels of the same damn thing in 4 time zones, offers. They also have access to obscure content that they may not otherwise see but is valuable to them.

Demographics.

Broadcasters:
Those broadcasters showing full episodes via streaming video on their websites can now determine the approximate location of their viewers via their computer's IP address. They can also segregate viewers, blocking anyone outside a certain geographic area.

Advertisers:
Their paid-for "content" can't be fast-forwarded over using tools like TiVo or DVRs. At least, not that I'm aware of, though this may change.

Viewers:
Blocked from watching content; geographic discrimination. But this isn't really that different than the current broadcasting model.

Read the rest of the article here

Latest news- latest news

The lines are being drawn, the entrenched powers are fighting back, who is going to win this battle of the media giants... my money is on the Free stuff.

What do you think?

"The Long Tail is a brilliantly written, very compelling description of a power law. It is not an economic reality and it has almost no relevance to the economics of the television business. Although I personally think Chris is brilliant, the conclusions he drew from the historical television data points he presented during his keynote are incorrect. The deck illustrated a profound lack of understanding about television production, distribution and the advertising and subscription revenue that drive the business. (Author's note: We will be publishing a paper that deconstructs the Long Tail for the online video business in a few weeks.)"

Read the rest of this fascinating discussion here.

Joost Content Programmer - Michael Staal-Olsen

Thank you to Michael Staal-Olsen for our second entry to the Jooster content programmer competition.
If you agree with Michael´s content choices leave a positive comment for him on this post, we will be announcing the winners and giving out the 6 Beta tokens at the end of the month.

If you would like to enter the competition click here.

Michael Staal-Olsen:

Well, I’m not the big fan of sport but if I should choose something I would take golf, tennis, badminton and curling. They are all quietly sports if you ask me. And then it isn’t about strength. It is about concentration and focus. Of course it is good if you’ve got some muscles but it is more about focus than muscles. Except of tennis and badminton. I think you have to be strong if you want to be professional. But it is still great to see how they can smash to an already hard ball. That’s what I call sport.

• ‘Dr Phil’ is a great show. He is good to show people the right paths if they’ve got problems inside or outside their homes. He is always relaxed when he gives his advices. I think it is nice to watch. I like talk shows. But not shows about dating and such things. I think it is boring to watch people that want a girl and then they ask a person for an advice. The person now tell him that he is a geek an then they have to buy him some new dress. I just think it is to unrealistic.

• I think that ‘The Simpsons’, ‘Joey’ and ‘Friends’ is my favourite comedy series. ‘The Simpsons’ is about Homer Simpson and his family’s odd and strange life in the also very odd and strange town Springfield. But maybe it is Homer that makes all the family looks like idiots. I think that there is about 17 seasons. I know that there also is coming a movie about them. I hope that I may watch it for my parents. But I hope that it won’t be a bad movie. I’ve heard about series that became movies and they became awful.

• Music is not my business. But I think that ‘Mew’ and ‘the Beatles’ is great musicians. It is a kind of soft rock. Not metal rock. Soft rock is quieter. And it is either good to listen to. It was sad that John Lennon leaved ‘the Beatles’. He was a good musician. And so were the others. ‘Mew’ has created such songs as ‘the zookeepers boy’, am I wry? No’ and ‘symmetry’. To me it listen like ‘the Beatles’ a bit. And then they are still playing. Actually they have won an award in Denmark as ‘the best song’. It must be fun to win such an award!

• I like movies as ‘Harry Potter’, ‘the Lord of the Rings’, ‘Scary movie (1-4)’, and ‘Kill Bill (1-2)’. They are very different but that is also nice to watch different kinds of movies. ‘Harry Potter’ has the mysterious, the magic and the war against the dark side just as ‘the Lord of the Rings’. They have also magic, war and so on. ‘Scary movie’ has the comedy. It is about some teenagers that think that they are going to die… and so they are. But it is not a scary death… it is a funny death… - ‘Kill Bill’ is not funny. It is about murders between murders. You don’t know why they fight before the end of the film. And then you will get all your questions get answered…

Manufacturing in China and innovation in Europe - move over silicon valley

John Markoff of the New York Times wrote about a technology and media conference being held in New York this week and how its provided ample evidence that Silicon Valley’s dominance of Internet-style technology innovation is waning.




The star of this year’s event was Niklas Zennstrom, the Swedish co-founder of the file-sharing system Kazaa and the Internet telephony company Skype, which was sold to eBay for $2.6 billion in 2005. Mr. Zennstrom last week took the wraps off a previously secretive start-up, Joost, that intends to provide a peer-to-peer approach to distributing video online.

“We’re trying to take the good things about television and the good things about the Internet and put them together,” he said.



Like many participants here, Mr. Zennstrom voiced the opinion that Internet-based commerce would accelerate in its disruptive effect on traditional businesses. Skype, for example, now says that it carries 4.4 percent of all worldwide long-distance calling.

“We now have a pretty decent Internet infrastructure,” Mr. Zennstrom said, noting in the future that it would give rise to “many, many more disruptive industries.”

Read the whole article here.

Joost Beta review video, laptop and plasma screen test

This is well worth watching even though its in Finnish. English subtitles guide you through and its interesting to see Joost perform flawlessly on both laptop and plasma.



Enter the Jooster competition and win a Beta tester token, click here for details.

Thanks to Hessunkavila for the video post

A daily dose of Joost for those still waiting....

If your not on the Joost Beta testing waiting list then there is obviously something wrong with you. Check this video out and then tell us that you don't want to be watching Joost on a computer near you soon.



Alternativly if you dont fancy a long wait, enter the Jooster Content programmer competition and 6 Beta testers will be signing up to Joost on the 1st of February. Click here for more details on how you could win a Joost Beta token today.

Joost Beta Token goes for $51 on eBay

It didn’t take long for Joost invites to find their way on eBay.

This particular auction ended at $51 however there has not been any others posted on eBay since.

On message boards and blogs all over the web, everyone seems to be asking for an invite but no one seems to have one.

Well we do!

Enter the Jooster content programmer competition, click here for details, for the chance to win a Joost beta test token.

We are giving away 6 to the best entries to the competition, delivered to the 6 winners by Email on the first of February.

Don't delay enter today and watch Joost next month.

Thanks to Joostfan for the link

Jooster Content Programmer - Michael Bohnstedt

Thank you to Michael Bohnstedt for the first entry to our Jooster content programmer competition. If you agree with Michael´s content choices leave a positive comment for him on this post, we will be announcing the winners and giving out the 6 Beta tokens at the end of the month. If you would like to enter the competition click here.

Michael Bohnstedt:

I began surfing the “web” back when a 9600 modem was really cool and it doesn’t even feel like that many years ago, and here we are in 2007 and it definitely looks like Web TV is finally, taking the first step that I would dare call “One small step for Joost, but a giant leap for us Watchers”.

Sure, there are many Video on Demand sites out there, but honestly the quality might be acceptable for the adult genre but I don’t believe it will, in a big way, bring the Web TV to everybody’s living room.

It is important to note that all the seasoned brands in ADSL modems and the like, are right now pushing their respective “PC to your big Plasma/LCD screen gadgets” to the markets. The reason is obvious, the sales of big screen TV’s are ever increasing month by month and with prices going the opposite way, this trend will continue.

With this development in mind I have no doubt that, just like myself, a significant number of web users, will be ever more interested in a quality (content and picture) of Web TV which make it acceptable/endurable to watch on your big screen TV on par with channels distributed via Satellite or cable.

Sure, not everybody owns a PC, which made me wonder about Web TV and the just launched PS3. Living in Europe I don’t own a PS3 yet but have read reviews and articles enough, to convince me that with the built in browser, hard disk and more of a PC architecture that a gaming device, it would be conceivable that a PS3 version of Joost could be done. The PS3’s excellent output options and quality would make it the perfect conveyor of high quality Web TV to the big screen anywhere.

Travel, I do a lot of traveling and therefore also spent many late hours in hotels, and I am more often than not very disappointed with the selection and quality of the channels offered. But it is becoming more and more normal that hotels offer free high-speed wireless connection. With a free high-speed wireless connection, my laptop and Joost, many boring nights will now turn into me having to make up my mind which one of my favorite programs I want to watch… I can’t wait!

But, in the end the only way to ensure the success of Joost in my humble opinion, is all about 3 things, and I wouldn’t prioritize one above the other, they have to complement each other:
• Content
• Quality
• Ease of use

The perfect balance between the above will create the “stickiness” that all websites crave for.

Below are the categories/channels with my comments/thoughts I believe would help secure a large and relatively loyal crowd:
Sport, you can never go wrong with sport channels. You will always secure a huge audience in this genre and who would not love to be able to watch your favourite game whenever you feel like or can fit it into your daily schedule.
• Golf
• NFL
• NBA
• NHL
• Indy 500
• Formula 1
• X-Games

Reality TV, there is quite a “stickiness” to these types of programs.
• Big Brother
• There are too many for me to get into

Comedy, because we all love a good laugh.
• Comedy Central
• Cartoons

Music, it is always nice to check out the latest and hottest titles.
• MTV

Film/Drama, I am unsure about this category as I believe many, like myself, will still go and buy or rent whichever movie they have been looking forward to for months.
• Sci Fi
• Classics
• Westerns News, because we all need our daily fix of news.
• CNN
• BBC World
• ESPN News

Science/History, educating and entertaining for all ages, and I personally love to spend a dark winter day watching these channels.
• Discovery Science
• Discovery History
• TopGear

Nature, educating for all ages and the quality of these types of programs just keep getting better and better.
• Animal Planet
• National Geographic

Food, programs about food have never been more popular than right now, they are entertaining to watch and very inspiring for those who like to cook, but don’t have a background in the food business. This genre has also been combined with travel programs with very good results.
• BBC Food
• The Food channel
• The Food Network

Travel, unfortunately I have to work and therefore can’t travel the world like a millionaire all year round, but I have spent many rainy days dreaming myself to a different place on earth watching these channels.
• Discovery Travel
• Travel Channel

Gaming, watching the poker tournaments has been increasingly more popular the last couple of years and is still attracting new watchers.
• Poker

Anyway, the above is merely my personal thoughts provoked by the promising outlook with regards to the Web TV experience Joost will give us Web TV Watchers in the future.
I also apologize for my English, it is not my native language, I am from Denmark and currently live and work in Germany. My best regards and all the best to all you Joosters.

6 Joost beta tokens up for grabs in programming competition

Our competition is pretty simple but the answer could get complex.

We want you to imagine that you are in charge of the content programming for Joost.
Write a short comment to this post with a minimum of 500, and maximum 1500 words, on:

What content would you sign up and why?

(Hey - they might be hiring, you never know)

Within your article you MUST include your content preferences on each of the following categories:
Sport
Reality TV
Comedy
Music
Film/Drama

I will Publish your comments as a separate post and Jooster readers can leave their comments on how well you've done! I have 6 invites to give away and I will award them to the 6 best Joost content programmers.
Please include your email (don't worry I wont publish it) so that I can send the winners their Beta token at the end of the month


So what are you waiting for?

The challenge is a tough one but then nobody said revolutionizing the Television industry was going to be easy. Prepare yourself to ride the long tail to niches never yet explored, open your mind and your memories.



Here is an inspiring video for the book The Long Tail to get you thinking on how the 80/20 rule, the distribution bottle necks, the Hollywood strangle hold, has affected your media preferences to date.

We want you to think out of the box, think Google and search, flickr and photos, technorati and blogs, think 2.0, and when you´ve finished all that thinking, do something about it, get your best thoughts down and help in the beta testing by writing about the best content and why you feel passionate about watching it on Joost.

The new Jooster logo and our Beta token competition

Would you like to win a Joost Beta token

Subscribe to our feed today as we will be releasing details in the next 36 hours of a great new competition and giving away 6 beta tokens.