The Clock is Ticking for Joost

There’s a time bomb out there with Joost’s name on it. Full-screen, broadcast-quality video streams—the main selling point of Joost’s peer-to-peer Internet TV client software—is quickly coming to the Web. Brightcove will soon be offering such streams to its video publishers using BitTorrent DNA. But the real threat to Joost will be coming from Adobe and its ubiquitous Flash player.

Sometime in the next few months, Adobe is expected to incorporate the H.264 codec in all Flash players with the general release of Flash Player 9. You can already download a beta version from Adobe Labs. The H.264 codec is part of MPEG-4 and is the codec that Apple uses to compress all of the video downloads on iTunes. Once H.264 is part of Flash, the quality of streaming video on the Web will roughly double at current bandwidth speeds. That means YouTube videos will look twice as good—and those will likely remain on the low end in quality.

Every video site on the Web (and quite a few that are still in stealth) is just waiting for Flash Player 9 to be distributed widely and become the new standard. That will allow them to launch their own full-screen Internet TV services with video streams that are just as good or better than Joost’s, and that will require nothing more than a regular browser to watch.

Joost’s greatest asset right now is not its peer-to-peer technology. It’s the momentum it’s gained so far by being an early mover. When Joost finally came out of its private beta on October 1, it had already signed up one million beta users and seeded its network with 15,000 shows. But the vast majority of that video is not exclusive to Joost. All the Internet TV services are lining up the same content. And better-quality video is not going to remain a differentiator for long.

As compression technologies get better, video sites will be able to dial up the quality of the video streams. Joost’s P2P approach is not a benefit to the consumer as much as it is a benefit to Joost (because it offloads the bandwidth costs of the most popular video streams to the users themselves). But streaming video on the Web is about to get a whole lot cheaper—and as Web video advertising takes off, a whole lot more lucrative. Some people argue that once the economics kick in, centralized Web streaming will offer a better, more consistent viewing experience than P2P streaming. That’s why H.264 is so important. It will change the economics of streaming.

Joost’s only remaining competitive barrier will be its network of viewers and their interactions among each other, along with the third-party apps built around it. If viewers feel that the experience of watching videos on Joost is more social or pleasurable than watching streams by themselves on the Web, maybe they’ll stick around. But social features are not exclusive to Joost, and neither are its platform ambitions. The slam-dunk days for Joost will soon be over.

The Holy Grail For Mobile Social Networks

We’ve been tracking emerging mobile-only social networks such as ZYB and Mocospace and Mig33. All have unique selling points (Mocospace is dead simple to use, ZYB has a rich set of potential users from their address book backup service, and Mig33 has a VOIP tool that has attracted over seven million users), but there’s one solid gold feature that none yet have: physical presence detection and information exchange with other users.

This is the Holy Grail of mobile social networking, and one of the main reasons for taking the networks off the desktop/laptop environment in the first place. Imagine walking into a meeting, classroom, party, bar, subway station, airplane, etc. and seeing profile information about other people in the area, depending on privacy settings. Picture, name, dating status, resume information, etc. The information that is available would be relevant to the setting - quick LinkedIn type information for a business meeting v. Facebook dating status for a bar.

Knowing when your friends are around, and having the ability to meet new people who share your interests (even if it’s just that you are both single), will drive massive usage of networks. But, as with many new services, a chicken and egg problem looms. Until everyone is using this, there is no real reason for anyone to use it. Meetro, an instant messaging service that finds friends based on location, has struggled to gain users over the last couple of years for this reason.

Technical barriers aren’t an issue - cell phone tower triangulation and bluetooth solve a lot of the problems of locating users and transmitting information between phones. What’s harder is just plain getting a critical mass of users.

The Failures

There is a trail of failed attempts at getting this right. Nokia released Nokia Sensor nearly three years ago. It broadcasts information about yourself to others via bluetooth. Never heard of it? Neither has anyone else, although it is still available for download. Google’s Dodgeball is another example that’s fallen flat - it tells friends (and friends of friends) who are within 10 blocks of you where you are and what you are doing.

The New Experiments

A bunch of new startups are giving this a shot, too. In a post yesterday TechCrunch UK mentions Germany’s Aka-Aki, Paris-based Mobiluck and MeetMoi (the lone U.S. startup). Another startup is Copenhagen-based Imity. It’s not surprising that most of the innovation is occurring in Europe. The current approach is to get java-based software on the phone - very few U.S. carriers and handsets allow user-based installs of java apps.

Aka-Aki

Aka-Aki, based in Germany, is just a couple of weeks old. Create a profile and download the java app to your phone. You can also create and join groups that say things about your life, job, etc. When you are near other people who are members, data about you is transmitted to them via bluetooth, and vice versa. Users have control over data flow with privacy settings. And the groups supply another layer of privacy. You may transmit that you are single only to other singles, for example. Or share your sexual orientation only with others with the same orientation.

After a silent launch, word is getting out. Thousands of people in Berlin are using the software, and there is a chance for them to get critical mass there with proper marketing. The company has raised a small seed round from FoundersLink and is currently looking for a larger round.

Imity

Copenhagen based Imity, which launched in April, has also been flying under the radar. Like Aka-Aki it detects other members via bluetooth and send basic profile information to your phone. It also keeps track of people on its website, so you can check that out periodically from your normal computer. It’s bridges mobile and traditional social networks, which may help it gain critical mass. Co-founder Nikolaj Nyholm is also behind Polar Rose, a facial recognition and image tagging service.

Imity went open source in February 2007.

MeetMoi

MeetMoi, the only U.S. based service, is most like Dodgeball - it uses text messaging to help connect people. It’s dating focused - text your location to the service and it notifies other users in your area that you are there. If they are interested, they can contact you. The company has raised $1.5 million from Acadia Woods Partners and is based in New York.

MobiLuck

MobiLuck, based in Paris, is another bluetooth solution similar to Aka-Aki and Imity. Download the software to your phone and it vibrates when other users are nearby. You can then chat with them, send photos, etc.

Update: Per a comment below, we’re adding Britekite to the list. We actually covered them briefly last month as part of the TechStars event.

Firefox Isn’t Bloated, DRM Will Die: Mozilla Europe CEO

TechCrunch UK’s Michael Butcher has an exclusive interview up with Mozilla Europe CEO Tristan Nitot that covers Firefox, DRM and Microsoft.

Nitot certainly doesn’t appear to be shy in his views on a number of topics. On DRM:

“I don’t think DRM has a future. Treating your customers like thieves is bad business practice. Today the customer is not ‘king’, they are considered thief first….It is stupid to think that the key to a DRM system won’t leak. So if it becomes more painful for a legitimate customer to use a product than it is for the pirates then that’s a problem.”

Nitot also states that Firefox isn’t becoming bloated: “No, Firefox is getting speedier and speedier;” whilst he is correct that Mozilla has held back from adding lots of extra features into Firefox, I’m surprised that he is claiming Firefox is getting speedier…perhaps it is, in between its memory leaks and intermittent crashes.

Full interview here.

VideoEgg And Lots Of Others Call B.S. On YouTube

VideoEgg’s overlay advertising system has been in the market for a year and is driving “significant” revenue for the company. it’s so successful, in fact, that they recently launched a Facebook advertising network based on the same technology.

The idea is to use a Flash overlay advertisement with some basic information and graphics that takes up a small part of the viewable video area. Users click the ad and get a more in depth video ad. It’s less intrusive than a pre or post roll ad, and has far better performance than ads placed around a video. It’s likely to become the standard way ads are placed on video, even potentially on normal television as the thirty second ad spot continues to decline.

Given VideoEgg’s success with the unit it’s no surprise that YouTube has adopted the same format with their advertising. But it is surprising that YouTube failed to give even a passing mention to the company that invented the unit. VideoEgg also claims to have a patent application on this - something YouTube will certainly have to deal with down the road.

Nick Carr points out that much of the early press on YouTube was written by people who failed to do their homework. Carr trashes a CNET article that he says was basically an ad for YouTube. CNET subsequently changed the title of their article but there is still no mention of VideoEgg’s invention of the unit

Meanwhile, VideoEgg seems to be handling the situation well and taking advantage of the publicity. They added the graphic above to their home page, and are talking to press about their product. Suddenly, everyone is interested.

New Generation Adult Sites Roundup

Online porn is usually a cutting edge industry and it is always all about the money. The industry is often first to the Internet with new features that eventually trickle down to mainstream consumer sites.

The latest wave of web innovation, though, was centered squarely on consumer sites. And the porn guys have adapted many of those features to create massively successful second generation adult content sites. PornoTube was the first we came across, in mid 2006. Others, like EroShare, have followed. We also mentioned Red Light District, a virtual world, in a recent roundup post.

Go2Web2 has just posted a roundup of some additional ones. Some of these have fantastic names - MegaRotic, Fantasti.cc, NippleByte, and StumblePorn, for example.

Many of these sites are little more than lead generation tools for more traditional porn sites (and if you are going to visit them, put on some protection first). But it is fascinating to see the industry try anything new to get new money in. Lots of competition and lots of money drive all of this.

AOL May Kill Their Netscape Digg Clone

AOL is considering killing off the “Digg Clone” social news site that they launched a little over a year ago at Netscape.com, and redirecting traffic to the Netscape portal instead. One source says it’s a done deal. Another says no final decisions have been made. But the Netscape editorial team is rumored to be completely freaked out, and they are starting to talk to outsiders. Either way, take a good look at that screen shot to the right. It may be the last chance you have to see the service.

It’s unclear as to why the site might be scrapped or changed. Netscape.com and netscape.aol.com are controlled by different groups with AOL. At the very least a turf war of some kind is playing a part. And since Netscape’s primary champion, Jason Calacanis, left the company late last year to start a new company, it may leave the social news property without enough clout to protect itself.

See this announcement on Netscape.com that some of the traditional portal/news features are being incorporated into the site. One source says this is a testing of the waters to gather data for a final decision:

Just launched this week, there is a new AOL.com site available for the Netscape Community. Over the past year, there has been a lot of feedback regarding some of the features of the previous Netscape.com site that have gone away, and this site hopes to being some of that functionality back. Check it out!

Update: An AOL spokesperson carefully comments below.

Community has been a core element of both AOL and Netscape since their inception and will continue to be. As the text on the site explains, we wanted to give a more traditional portal alternative to the Netscape users who requested it. You can rest assured that social news will continue to be an important part of what we do.

The message doesn’t address the issue head on. In fact it is sort of content-free. Saying “community has been a core element of both AOL and Netscape since their inception” followed by “you can rest assured that social news will continue to be an important part of what we do.” This is very different from saying that they are not closing netscape.com as we know it. Clarification is requested. See this comment as well from Tom Drapeau, who runs the current Netscape site. He’s also clearly annoyed by this post.

Megavideo: Does It “Beat” YouTube?

a new online video sharing site based out of Hong Kong, has YouTube in its sights. In a video on its homepage, the company claims to best YouTube for ten reasons:

1. Video publishers can earn money through a rewards program
2. Publishers can also earn money through AdBrite in-video advertisements
3. Users can move the playback position to anywhere in the video
4. The website supports twenty languages
5. The video player can be customized to match the designs of websites where you want to embed
6. There is no maximum playtime for video uploads
7. Video conversion takes no more than 30 minutes
8. Videos can be uploaded in batch
9. Original video files can be downloaded
10. Megavideo loves you more than YouTube

Since users can also move the playback position to anywhere within a video on YouTube, and the last given reason is pure filler, only eight of these advantages seem to be justifiable.

The site is notable for its lack of banner advertisements. The company appears to be aiming to generate revenue by charging people for premium features. Premium members must pay at least $10 per month, but they can upload videos up to 5GB in size and their uploads get prioritized before regular members. Also, only premium members can download videos from the site (as opposed to streaming) and earn revenue from advertisements and the Megavideo rewards program.

Megavideo is provided by the same company that created Megaupload.

Watch Megavideo’s self-proclaimed ten reasons for preferring their service to YouTube below:

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