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Really interesting terms on the new Joost beta – the “Friends Edition”
by Allen Stern on May 9th, 2007
I had to install a new beta of Joost today. It is called the "Friends Edition." Everything worked fine with the download and the install but you must accept the terms which seemed fine except for one line that I have never seen before. It states:
"… you know that the Joost software will:
- deliver shows and TV-like advertising to me,
- use my computer and some of my bandwidth to deliver content to me and to other users, and
- operate when minimized, unless I fully exit the software."
I didn't realize that my bandwidth would be helping Joost to provide their service. Anyone else hear of this prior to today? Here is a screencapture of the terms:
If you want an invite, check the details here.
I think it is because Joost is partly a p2p application.
Yes, well we had been told it was a ‘peer-to-peer’ video streaming product. This suggests that some of you bandwidth will be used in a bit-torrent kind of way. Actually, they might even be using the bit torrent protocol as its so well understood and available (Joost seems to be built on quite a few open source toolkits).
This peer-to-peer delivery system should save them the same HUGE bandwidth bills that youtube faces every month!
It was well known in the early stages that Joost (or The Venice Project as it was known originally) uses P2P as one of the ways to deliver the service. It does seem to be less advertised now though. But after all, you wouldn’t expect any less from the founders, who developed the technology behind P2P platform Kazaa, and Skype, which also uses P2P I believe (and if its true, I reckon most Skypers don’t know about it).
The p2p aspect of Joost is quite interesting. Most P2P works because a lot of people want the same files, so they can co-operate to distribute them. Internet TV is supposedly more about the long tail – watch *anything* you want, whenever you want. Does the P2P aspect mean that only the ‘big hit’ shows will be delivered quickly, while long tail, minority tastes will find their feed stutters because too few users are interested in watching it? Only time will tell.