I wasn’t that impressed when I saw Joost either… Looked like Democracy on steroids. Democracy, of course, is good, and John C. Dvorak ain’t impressed with Joost…
Oh the technology looks cool enough, but so what? The only content is infomercials for last-gen rock bands with emphasis on Green Day and it’s Hitler Youth-style concerts. There is also some snide punk doing a talk show for kids “who don’t like adults telling them what to watch.” He emphasizes that point incessantly between glances at someone off camera who I assume to be his Dad. And the rest of the programming, if you can call it that, is worse.
Well, so far the content involves Much Music (sucks on TV, must suck just as much on Joost as it does on TV) and the World Series of Poker (I love it, but I wouldn’t watch it on my computer). Who knows, maybe they’ll knock it out of the park when they start signing content deals, but from what I understand they’re looking for major commercial content which doesn’t bode well for independent broadcasters (read: podcasters). We shall see.
Right now, I reckon the hype (akin to that of the snorezone that is Second Life) is far outweighing the project itself.
And why is it that the people who read his review went off on him? I notice that no one has criticized the fawning and overblown reviews so far. If Dvorak can’t criticize it because it’s a beta and in development, why can people fawn over that same “in development” product? That strikes me as somewhat hypocritical.
[tags]joost, democracy, dvorak[/tags]