Joost: Bringing the TV to your Internet

While Apple TV and other new media devices have pushed to find ways to bring video content to your television Joost is attempting to bring the TV to your internet.

WHAT IS JOOST?

Joost describes itself on their website as being FREE TV with complete control and exciting extras. They currently are streaming TV shows as user demands over the internet and to the Joost Client.

At first I was skeptic of the whole idea given that the most important item or any TV service would be content. Fortunately for all of us, Joost has been working deals for a while with a number of different providers. Their channel lineup includes MTV, Comedy Central, BET, National Geographic, and many many others. While most of these Joost Channels only include one to two shows, the potential of additional content seems endless.

The application is still in Beta but I must admit that I'm very impressed with my initial experience with the application. The current version of the software is 0.9.2 for windows but also has a similar release available for Mac OSX.

After receiving an invite to the Beta testing I quickly downloaded the software and registered an account. The application loaded quickly and within seconds started streaming video content to my computer. While the user interface is a bit flashy for me, it provides all the userful options for navigating a TV internet application including channels, shows, and even personal options that allow you to chat about the episodes you're watching with other users currently watching the same show. It was nice to be able to quickly pick from one show to another and start watching in full screen a decent quality video for free.

Currently Joost is only available by Invite only. Post a comment if you'd like an invitation and I'll share any that come my way.