ALERT – The wait is over... No longer do users need a precious invitation to join the closed Joost beta to experience IPTV at its best. Joost has recently opened their 1.0 beta to the public. Enhancements include a slightly revised user interface and open API for 3rd party widget development. Joost has differentiated themselves from other online content providers in both delivery and quality of content. By using a peer-to-peer distributed streaming model to deliver video content, as opposed to relying on a central server, Joost is able to provide more efficient (for them) delivery of video content. Faster streaming of video content is nice, but providing professionally-produced content is a key component as well. Joost has done well securing distribution deals with Viacom, CBS, and Turner Networks for high-quality television content.
Administrators need to be aware that Joost is designed to evade detection from corporate firewalls and usage within their organizations can potentially consume large amounts of bandwidth and productivity. In April 2007 when the private beta started, Palo Alto Networks released an App-ID that gives customers visibility and control over Joost traffic - allowing it to be blocked or simply marked with a QoS tag for prioritization at the WAN gateway.
For more information about Joost click here.