Joost to test live streaming
According to New Tee Vee Joost is going to start a public live streaming test today. A new client will be released for that purpose becoming available today as well. The first public live stream will be a video chat with the Joost technical team, a first test so to say to see if everything runs smoothly.
The first real test will be the live streaming of all NCAA basketball championships games starting next Thursday which will be available to users world wide which comes a little bit surprising if you consider how other Internet TV services (like Hulu) tend to ignore viewers from outside the United States.
The other good news is that there will only be in-stream ads which is only fair I guess if you consider it's free and live. The Joost team is looking forward to this first large scale live test which could bring up related problems that are not foreseeable at the moment. I guess the best thing is to enjoy it while it lasts.
I think it is pretty exciting that Joost is finally starting to deliver live content which was always something that held them back in my opinion. From there the possibilities are endless, providing the software and service work as intended.
Update: Both the Joost software and website have been pulled from the Internet. The service is not dead yet, but the website states that the operators made the decision to pause it to think about its future.
I think it is unlikely that Joost will make a return. What you can use as an alternative is Miro, a program that makes available channels in its program interface. While it is not making available live TV, it provides you with a program and enough recordings to make it a suitable alternative.
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