What Went Wrong With Joost?

Joost died because it didn't do what it said it did: Let you watch TV on the internet.<p>It let you watch little snippets of things you weren't interested in. I downloaded the client because I lived in Spain at the time without a television. I tried to use it a few times, but there was never anything on it worth watching. Certainly no network television. None of the sports that it promised. Basically, nothing at all to watch.<p>Then Hulu came along with a thing that let you watch TV on the internet. The rest is history.

Really, what went wrong was that Joost didn't get the content they needed.<p>Sure, one can quibble that they didn't act like a startup or that people didn't want to download a player and wanted to use their browser, but really it just didn't get content.<p>Hulu, while not taking anything away from their impressive execution and reliability, owes most of its success to Fox, NBC and others putting loads of content on it.

...they didn't have anything compelling to watch. I tried to enjoy it but beyond a few music videos there really wasn't much there. I think they had a plan, they were trying to execute it but at the end of the day you either buy, borrow, or steal the content.<p>I think it's sad that Viacom was one of their investors but did not offer up any of their back catalog. Being the largest media company on the planet, even if they gave them their B-grade shit it still would have been loads better than what was available on joost.

Joost sounds like one of those companies that's created just to get VC money and get sold to someone gullible.<p>If the founders had truly wanted to build something that helped their customers, they could have done it without $45 million in funding, as they had when they created Kazaa and Skype.

Joost is a good example showing that buzz, money, and fame can't beat good content. Content is still king.

Am I the only person that thinks their silly name didn't help?<p>OK, lots of sites have silly names, but whereas Hulu had a big ad campaign to make sure you knew it was pronounced 'hooloo' rather than 'huhluh', Joost is just confusing.<p>I assume the correct pronunciation is like 'juiced', which makes me wonder why they didn't buy it (juiced.com is just parked with generic ads). Maybe it's because I'm European, but whenever I see the name, I can't help reading it as 'Yoost' (this is how it would sound in Dutch, and the company is Dutch). If I were Latino, I might read it as 'Hoost'.<p>It just doesn't feel comfortable...talking about it with a friend over the phone last year went like this:'-You spell it j o o s t. - Say what? -like boost with a j. -oh...that's stupid'. I realize this seems like a trivial complaint, but I think there's a fine line between a clever name that uses the momentary 'huh?' reaction to become memorable (eg google), and one that just creates confusion.<p>Great article overall, and a cautionary tale of what can go wrong with the 'just do it' approach.

Content was just one part of the equation. The larger problem was that Joost assumed people would download a client, after all they did it with Kazza &#38; Skype. By then, the dynamics of the consumer had changed (thanks in large part to you-tube) -- people didn't want to download software to watch videos.<p>Just because something worked for you in the past, doesn't necessarily mean it would work in the future. Joost could have done a plug-in similar to flash/silverlight that was a one-time download, this plug-in could have done all the things their download client would have done.<p>Hindsight, of-course is 20/20. It will be interesting to see what else they build using the core from JotID.

Content == key.<p>If all you can get are some unknown documentaries, odd irrelevant 24hr news bulletins, wannabe mtv channels then you're pretty much dead from the start.

<i>Hulu ...offered higher-quality video and used content from its backers, NBC and Fox</i><p>'nuff said. The rest is a laundry list.

Keep one eye on Joost. If Hulu gets too popular they could leave themselves open to accusations of anti-competitive practices and forced licensing of content to other vendors at equivalent rates, at which point Joost will have an advantage as a company that already has the infrastructure.

The founders are just focused at earning money in my opinion. They realized that what is most important at the business world is earn money very early. They moved away from the initial concept of startups to a more like enterprise thinking. Different worlds with different priors. A startup focus on product, an enterprise on investors. And the most important thing, a huge part of the game comes from luck, but most part of the initials tend to think that it´s all about their skills, and, because already did before, they can do again ... it´s not like that. It´s not just about your skills, but about luck too ... so what they need to do is just shut down that try and start the next. Ouch ! But there´s a problem ... they are no an startup, they are an enterprise so they have to act like that, they need to do what they do instead, so they probably have to stick with the mistake until the end.

The client ran like a dog on my machine, and was some kind of rainbow interface. Bizarre!

There was nothing to watch...