Joost, Online TV

First, they brought you Kazaa. Then they built Skype and sold it to Ebay for a cool 2.6 billion. Now, Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström are working to bring online television — real television — not user-gen clips. Formerly called "The Venice Project," Joost will bring personalized TV channels, complete with a virtual remote control to stop, skip, rewind, fast forward; Joost will bring TV to the desktop, the laptop, and yes, even the palmtop. Running on a hybrid P2P platform, Joost will utilize the power of millions of networked PCs, as well as using traditional video servers.

Sounds great in theory, but what about content? Joost has that covered, too. They plan on being fully legit, legal, and appealing to contents owners. Via Wired: Industry-grade X.509 encryption is built in. Prefer your own branded channel? Slice and dice your programming any way you like. Want to deliver hi-def? Whenever or wherever typical cable user bandwidth reaches 2 Mbps. (P2P’s cost advantage over conventional streaming increases at higher bitrates.) Need to block a country where your digital rights are already spoken for? No problem. Subscriptions and pay-per-view? They’re in the road map.

Joost has deals in the works with 3 major music labels for music video content, as well as top broadcasters and cable channels. For the content owners, the draw is the ability to advertise to very specific niches: for example, you could advertise to all the viewers of a particular show, or advertise on the first show that a viewer watches that day. And for the viewers, there is comfort in the fact that no personally identifiable information will be stored in Joost databases…all personal info stays in a file on the PC.

It almost sounds too good to be true, but that’s not stopping me for signing up for the beta.

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On a personal note, if I’ve been a little quiet lately, it’s because I’m pounding the pavement right now looking for a new job. I have several possibilities, so don’t worry…I just have to figure out what’s the right path for me to take. Since job hunting is foremost on my mind at the moment, this news caught my eye: LinkedIn will soon be supporting the hResume format. hResume is a new type of microformat and what this says to me is that LinkedIn will soon be offering some sort of feature where users can post resumes and others can query them. At least that’s what I’m getting out of it. Unless you know something else?

And while you’re at, anyone who can explain microformats in plain English would get a gold star from me because, quite frankly, the way they’re described at the microformats.org website is a bit too abstract for my tastes: "a way of thinking about data…design principles for formats…a set of simple open data format standards that many are actively developing and implementing for more/better structured blogging and web microcontent publishing in general."

Lossless XHTML is…what?

It’s 7 PM EST and my Gmail has been down for at least 30 minutes (as far as I know). It’s moments like this that remind me that when you use a free, web-based product, as amazing as it may be, you are at the mercy of the service provider. As we move towards more of a webOS, software-as-a-service world, we need to remember to pick those services wisely. If you were using Gmail for your domain, would this be an acceptable downtime for your business? What if you went with Google Docs&Spreadsheets instead of M$ Office and it went down?

Hey! Watch is a website that offers online video conversion. With no software to install, the service can convert video from a plethora of different formats. Video can be sourced from online video services (Youtube, Myspace, Google Video, Metacafe, etc.), video podcast feeds, video links (direct or from a webpage), or videos from your hard disk. All kinds of formats are supported — DVD, Divx, mov, MP4, flv, swf, asf, Real, vcd, svcd, etc. Converted video can then be loaded onto portable devices (mobile phones, iPods, PSPs, NDS, Archos, Pocket PCs, Creative Zen, etc.) or onto your P.C. Very useful!

Everyone is talking about the latest sneaky trick from Yahoo. Apparently, users that download an update to their Yahoo IM software have their default search engine in IE7 switched to Yahoo. Additionally, users have the choice to check the "auto-update" option, which then proceeds to make even more changes, like setting the homepage to Yahoo and changing the default browser to IE7. Bad, Yahoo, bad.

Frankly, none of this is surprising. Historically, there have been many services that used shady techniques such as this. I remember years ago, when I first started to blog, I was ranting about how Real Player dug into your computer and insisted on auto-updating itself and sending you messages and reporting usage stats, etc. etc. Have you used Real Player lately? Not much has changed.

So where did this really get Yahoo? A bunch of bad PR and a hint of desperation. What really kills me is that there are people out there using Yahoo IM. Isn’t IM dying out? Who still uses Yahoo, MSN, or AOL IM on a daily basis? Obviously, not me. Maybe I’m wrong (am I wrong?), but I know that the kids have moved on, at least. These days, the tweens, teens, and college-kids are too busy leaving comments on Myspace or poking each other on Facebook to bother with IM. And if they do need to IM, they’ll just use Myspace’s integrated IM service. IM’s only chance for survival was a group effort for a universal messenger, and although Yahoo & MSN are getting together for that, it may be too little, too late. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in a few years, the only regular IM’ers were the corporate internal IM users.

P.S. Yes, I know the story is a few days old. Things are crazy for me lately…

1. I just got a $300 iPod
2. If I put my iPhone & my keys in the same pocket, will the iPhone come out covered in scratches?
3. A bad iTunes update could crash my cell phone
4. iPhone accessories will not be cheap
5. No expandable memory
6. No 3G
7. Not a Smartphone (no Exchange/Office)
8. No over-air downloading from iTunes store
9. Mugging potential greatly increased
10. I don’t have $500

OK, I’d certainly take an iPhone if you wanted to give me one. It is rather stylish and cool. However, I’m thinking that $500 would be better spent on the Windows Home Server (see post below).

How exciting! A new Windows product! I’m actually not being sarcastic — the new Windows Home Server looks pretty cool. Announced today at CES, the server is meant for storing media and other data you have on your home network PCs & devices. Additionally, the server can perform automated backups and images, while monitoring PC health. The Home Server gives you the ability to add storage as needed, without worrying about drive names, moving files around, or having to leave certain PCs
on. HP will be first out of the gate with Home Servers available later this year priced around $500.

I like it. I like it a lot. I can’t wait to have one.

GUtil is a Firefox add-on that provides a shortcut to many of Google services and utilities. The extension allows you to place a GUtil button anywhere in your Firefox Toolbar Menu as well as adding a link in the Firefox Menu Bar. With one-click, you can access any of the 28 Google services listed, including Gmail, Doc&Spreadsheets, Reader, Blogger, Notebook, Adsense, as well as many search services like Blog search, Image Search, Maps, News, and much more.

I like the concept of this extension - quick access Google services without having to install a toolbar - but the execution leaves a little to be desired. For one thing, the aesthetics could be better.  Some services have the appropriate Google icon next to their name, but others just have a standard "G" logo. Granted, the ones with the "G" logo are just the links to the special searches, but on the Google toolbar, these items have icons, so why not here? Beyond just looking nice, icons make it easier and quicker to find the option you’re looking for in a long list.

Another problem with the extension is the customization feature. Going into the options, you can check and un-check the services you do and don’t want to appear on your menu. Sounds great except after un-checking some items, I was surprised to find them still on the toolbar.

I can’t say that I fully recommend this extension, unless you are really looking for a way to quickly access Google services without having to use the Google toolbar. However, I will keep my eye on this extension, as it may improve over time.

What’s Its Color is an online image-color processing utility that will evaluate an image and give you an image’s primary and complementary dominant colors, how many visually unique colors are in an image, and the top ten visually unique colors in an image.

I could have used this website a million times over by now, had it existed. This could be extremely useful when creating a website. Although PhotoShop can do this type of thing for you, this way is quick, easy, and painless. I was surprised at how fast the image was processed. too. It was merely a matter of seconds before I had my results. I have a feeling I will get a lot of use out of this site in the future.

A definite bookmark!

How could I not know about this? I mean, really! I’m a little embarrassed that I completely missed the boat on this one. Seriously, how long has this service been around? Just in case you missed this too, I thought I would share: Free 411. Anytime you need to dial 411 from home or from your cell, you can call 1-800-FREE411 (1-800-373-3411) and get the listing you need completely free. The service is advertising-supported, so yes, you’ll hear an ad, but isn’t listening to an ad worth saving the $1.50 your cell provider charges? Also, at the Free411.com website, you can look up residential listings and business listings by category or name. My life is now complete.