Joost Will Save The World

Joost will: save the world; bring world peace; ruin the business of Hollywood; save Hollywood; clear up your acne and arthritis; make you more popular than anyone else on your block.

That’s the hype, that’s what the buzz is and that’s what people are saying and believing. Trust me, I know, I was one of those people when I couldn’t get in on the inside and get plugged in the beta test for Joost.

In case you haven’t been on planet Earth recently, Joost is a new streaming TV service (and so much more!) that’s recently started up. According to their website: Joost is a new way of watching TV on the internet. With Joost, you get all the things you love about TV, including a high-quality full-screen picture, hundreds of full-length shows and easy channel-flipping. You get great internet features too, such as search, chat and instant messaging, built right into the program – so you find shows quickly and talk to your friends while you watch. And with no schedules to worry about, you can watch whatever you want, whenever you like – as often as you want. Joost is completely free, and works with most modern PCs and Intel Mac-based computers with a broadband connection.

And it’s pretty cool and amazing. But, on to the story about getting into Joost… Being in the transitioning world of television, and watching what’s happening in our business, it’s always good to stay on top of the latest trends. So when I heard about it, I thought I’d check it out, give old Joost a spin. That is, until I went to their website and discovered that it’s one of those (now) closed beta tests, where you have to know somebody who’s already in the beta and they have to invite you (kind of like Google’s Gmail was, at first). Only it was even tougher, because even if you know someone, they only have an allotted amount of invitations to give out.

And the invitations are impossible to find and impossible to get and the beta has closed to open sign-up. So people with extra invitations are now selling them on Ebay, offering them through contests, making people sign up for their blogs, etc. It’s gotten a little crazy out there, and the hype only makes it go nuttier. People without invitations are offering all sorts of things for them, trading their kids for them, etc.

I actually tried for a while to sign up for blogs, enter contests, etc., and spent a day or so messing around with all that. But it seemed hopeless. And then I remembered… that I’m on the National Board of Directors of the Producers Guild of America… and we have a New Media Council… and those guys are really plugged into the tech/online world… and I should contact them. Use your connections, a wise man (my Dad) once told me. And one of my PGA buddies, Brian Seth Hurst, a bigwig in the tech world, just happened to be on a first name, email basis with one of the founders of Joost, and within minutes of me sending Brian an email about it, I was sent an invitation from Joost, from the big guy there.

And Joost is cool and may revolutionize TV online and is something I will continue to check out and report back to you on. But honestly, the hype surrounding this is amazing!

(I should mentioned that I was even lucky enough to also get an invitation a few days after having signed up for a contest, from a cool guy, James Yeang, who runs Friedbeef’s Tech, a groovy tech website I found recently. The idea was to post some cool reason for wanting the invitation, and I had written something like I’m in the TV business, I produce “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, and I need to stay up on all things TV. It worked — and thanks to James for the kindness he showed.)

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