Future Tech: October 2007 Archives
Forget Multichoice and Telkom Media, Joost has gone into public beta. You can now watch more than 250+ channels (and 15,000+ shows) without paying a TV license.
I've been using Joost since early this year and believe it's fantastic. Fullscreen, TV quality, on-demand television with very little buffering time. It's without a doubt what television is to be in the future.
Although few of the mainstream channels are available, the bouquet is massive, ranging from dedicated music & entertainment channels to documentaries and news. They don't have CNN but do have Reuters.
Although you now won't need a TV license, the drawback is that Joost does chow bandwidth. Joost was founded by Niklas Zenstrรถm and Janus Friis, of Skype fame.
They implemented Skype's Peer-to-peer technology, so not only will you be downloading data, you'll also be uploading data to others who are watching the same program as you.
This means they don't need massive server infrastructure to deliver 15000+ programs to their 1 million pre-beta registered users.
It also means, in South Africa and countries where we pay for usage, that Joost TV will be pretty darn expensive to watch. And considering that Telkom is now starting to play in the TV space, as well as holding a monopoly over data communications, this is unlikely to change anytime soon.
