Nokia Hopping In Bed With Joost?
So for a recent post I was exploring the Nseries website and I saw an ad for Joost. Joost is a system for distributing TV shows and other videos over the web using P2P technology, from the guys who brought us Skype and Kazaa. It’s a client that you download and install on your local machine and then view channels, much like a regular TV. So who cares?
Apparently, Nokia does. They signed a big advertising contract with them, and have a hookup so Nseries users can get a Joost invite. But personally, I don’t think this is just an advertising partnership. Nokia just invited Slingmedia to have a whole room setup at the L.A. Nseries Unlocked event. They’ve also, today, announced via Press Release that they’ve added a TON of partners for their Video Center, which is loaded up on most of the new Nseries devices. Hmmmm….
Right now, following the button on the Nseries.com site merely takes you to this page, which offers you a free Joost invite, courtesy of Nokia Nseries. Given Nokia’s current focus, what with Ovi and all, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a top-secret Joost S60 app in the works. Most of the N-series devices have WiFi, which is obviously plenty fast for streaming video. We now have the US 3G N95 available, that’s just as good for streaming video as WiFi.
What do you think? Have you used Joost before? If not, swing over and grab the install, check it out for yourself.
Interesting … Joost does not allow any downloading at the moment, but perhaps they have a mobile plan in mind with Nokia at the core… They are the only one (of MS and that Golf app) not currently on the phone.
I got in on the private beta a while back, but I believe it’s open to the public now. My first impressions of Joost(link under my name) were that I didn’t like the name(but I don’t like Ovi, either, so whatever), however, the content, the video quality, and the interface are all pretty slick.
The cool thing is because it uses Mozilla code, many of the same performance tweaks that work for Firefox also work for Joost.