Webware

Yedda, a social answers service, announced that it has celebrated its first anniversary with AOL since its acquisition in 2007. Coupled with that announcement, the company released its most popular queries of 2008. It determined that the most inquired topics of the year were the presidential election, and the "Zac Effron vs. Robert Pattinson hotness" debate. President Obama's 30-minute infomercial spawned 1,800 answers, while Sarah Palin's nomination speech collected 1,880 responses. The favorite movie of the year, based on Yedda's findings, was The Dark Knight.

Fotolia, a company that provides and sells stock photos, announced Friday that it has brought video to its site. According to the company's executives, they've built technology for the site that will allow them to accept, inspect, and sell footage on behalf of videographers and filmmakers. Those who wish to buy the videos will receive them for a single fee. After the transaction is made, consumers can use the videos however they see fit. The maximum resolution available is 1,920x1,080. Clips will be priced between $10 and $50, depending on the resolution.

Online video platform, Joost, announced Friday that its iPhone and iPod Touch application has been downloaded more than a million times at the Apple App Store. The free app hasn't set any records by reaching 1 million, but the company's representatives were quick to point out that Joost is ahead of other video delivery apps in the market.

Sports game developer Play Hard Sports announced that it has signed former NFL coach Bill Cowher to provide color commentary for its upcoming Flash Football game. The company also announced that it's changing its name to Quick Hit. The game will track stats and records and feature a social community where players can interact. It's expected to launch in time for the 2009 NFL season.

Boxee, one of the more promising media applications out there today, is announcing the launch of a few new content sources today at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Boxee now has added support for content from Joost and MTV Music. Joost is bringing its usual assortment of video content to the table, while MTV provides a huge amount of music videos. In the United Kingdom, Boxee has also added the BBC's popular iPlayer to its arsenal of content.

In addition, Boxee will be totally opening up its Mac, Linux, and Apple TV alphas to anyone who wants to sign up. The Windows version, however, will not be entering an open alpha, but rather an invite-only alpha while it scales.

Boxee, for those of you who don't know, is a media application that can act as a player for content on your computer or, where it really shines, as a conduit for viewing Web video from a variety of sources. Video sites that currently have a plug-in on Boxee include Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, CNN, Apple Movie Trailers, Revision3, CBS, Comedy Central, and more.

Boxee really does a great job of handling all of these different sources of content and presenting them in an easy-to-navigate way. In addition to these video sources, Boxee also integrates music sites such as CBS' Last.fm and Shoutcast. (Editors' note: CBS publishes CNET News.)

As you can see, there's a lot to be excited about here.

MTV Music rocks Boxee.

(Credit: Boxee)

After its excellent implementation of Netflix instant streaming, people have been begging Microsoft to bring Hulu and other video sites to the Xbox. Boxee is beating Microsoft to the punch, even offering a Netflix implementation that is more full-featured than the Xbox's.

If Boxee can find a way to get its software off of computer monitors and on to more TVs (as it is doing with Apple TV), I think we could be looking at the next big contender in media software.

Joost gets the Boxee treatment.

(Credit: Boxee)

Online video service Joost sent e-mails to its users Wednesday announcing that it has discontinued its software application. Released just a few months ago, the software application will be shuttered as of Friday, December 19. In the e-mail, the company claims that users will still be able to watch its videos online.

Panasonic is getting into the social-networking realm, it announced Tuesday. According to the company, its new social-networking community, Living in HD, is designed to "inspire ideas and spark conversation" among people through videos, photos, and project ideas. Each user will be given the opportunity to explain to the community how technology has helped them maximize their enjoyment of high-definition products. In essence, it's a social network for Panasonic fanboys.

Textbook rental start-up, Chegg, announced Wednesday that it has closed a Series C round of funding worth $25 million. The round was led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The company's executives claim they will use the funding to increase its stock of textbooks and invest in company growth opportunities.

Facebook announced late Tuesday that it has added a section for recently used applications to the top of the site's application menu in response to users complaining about not being able to find used apps that they had not yet bookmarked. The "recently used" option was available in previous design iterations, but it was taken out by the company's development team in the site's latest redesign.

Mobile social search engine, Taptu, announced Wednesday that it has secured $9.8 million in Series B funding in a round that was led by venture capitalists, 3i and Sofinnova. The company plans on using the cash to improve its infrastructure.

Men in Black playing on Joost's new iPhone app.

If ever there was a Web service that experienced a rapid fall from grace, it was online video start-up Joost. What started out as a much anticipated new service ultimately fell short of expectations and has recently struggled for attention. Friday, Joost released an iPhone app for its service that might be a game changer. Joost's iPhone app lets users stream and watch any of Joost's 46,000-plus videos for free.

Say what you will about Joost's library of content, the concept behind this app is fantastic. The ability to stream a movie, TV show, or other piece of video content on the go is great. I know the technology is nothing revolutionary--after all the iPhone has had a YouTube app, complete with streaming video, since the device launched. Even given that, when you load up Men in Black on Joost, it just feels like a whole different ballgame. This isn't a video of a dog on a skateboard anymore. This is real, Hollywood-produced content, delivered to your phone, for free.

I have not experienced the major hiccups that very early users, like MG Siegler did, so those issues seem to have been taken care of. I did notice some occassional stuttering of the stream over Wi-Fi. I am, however, disheartened by the lack of streaming support over EDGE or 3G. Joost requires a Wi-Fi connection to work.

Even though Joost appears to have a really slick UI (in many ways it does), it breaks some of the conventions for UI design set forth by Apple. Flicking to view the next page of search results does work. However, it does not slide over as you would expect, rather a spinning wheel is displayed while the next page loads. Joost also did not implement the incremental find that we have all grown accustomed to for searching.

For me, Joost's iPhone app falls just short of greatness. I really like what they are going for here, but I would certainly like to see more content added to Joost's library and support for 3G at the very least, if not EDGE. Even though the videos appear to choke at times, even over Wi-Fi, 3G should be more than capable of streaming video.

I hope that Hulu and Netflix, with their expansive content libraries, are paying attention to what Joost is doing because they are both prime candidates for this sort of mobile application. I get excited just thinking about having access to all of those videos (almost) anytime I want.

Joost on Friday finally took an important step forward by announcing that its desktop software would be getting phased out to make way for a Web watching experience. The only problem is that special software is in fact still required--and we're not talking Adobe Flash.

Whether you're on a Mac or a Windows machine, you'll still need to install an executable file on your computer to view videos. The new plug-in sits on your desktop taskbar even when you're not viewing the site, and apparently only begins to pipe data back and forth to other users when you're watching Joost videos.

The new version of the site will be available for beta testers in about two weeks time, although I've had the chance to nose around and watch a few videos on it today. Despite the need for software, it's impressive. Videos start playing in just a few seconds and when toggled for full-screen, the quality scales up nicely.

Like before, there are pre-roll ads, although I found them less intrusive and disjointed than Hulu's experience. The only anti-user ad interference I stumbled across was when a pre-roll ad kept me from being able to scroll through content on a playlist. I had to wait about five seconds for the ad to run before I could get back to finding something to watch. Not cool.

The new Joost player runs right in your browser as long as you've got a small peice of software running on your machine. (click to enlarge)

(Credit: CBS Interactive)

The biggest thing missing from the new Joost is the feeling of immersion. The Joost application, for all it's faults, took you away from your desktop and everything else you were doing. Like up and comer Boxee, which runs off the core of Xbox Media Center, it's something that had personality and a really marvelous UI. The new version feels a tad sterile, although when it comes to browsing through episodes and series, there's noticeably less lag, and hey, you can continue to get work done on your computer at the same time.

The Joost software sits in your taskbar, ready to serve up vintage Star Trek.

(Credit: CBS Interactive)

Noticeably gone from the new Joost (at least for now) is the user chat. You can still comment on a video and favorite it, but the feeling of a real-time experience has gone out the door. There's also a feature called "shout it out" that lets you flag the video with various pop culture acronyms like LOL, HOT, PUKE, and the generally useful WTF. Clicking on any of these will play a canned sound clip and alert you of your flag, although it has no noticeable effect.

Ultimately the Joost experience comes down to the content and the various ways to dig through it to find something good. While the existing playlists are very good for this, when you're searching by TV network or content provider it's still difficult to simply browse by shows. For instance, clicking on MTV took me to a player that randomly began playing Laguna Beach. Ideally, it would jump me to a list of shows where I could drill down a little deeper--like what was available before.

Software aside, I'm excited to see Joost hop onto the Web. There's a lot of good content on there that you can't find elsewhere, and experiencing it in your browser will seem like second nature for newcomers--that is as long as they're willing to jump through a software hoop.

More screens after the jump.

Joost isn't letting the public try out the site yet but that will change soon.

(Credit: Joost)

Finally, Joost is going to correct the error that badly hobbled the Web video service many once considered to be a serious YouTube competitor.

Currently available for Windows and Mac, Joost is planning to launch a test version of its new site later this month that will feature a browser-based plug-in and will no longer require users to watch via the company's much maligned desktop client. In a not so surprising move, users will be able to embed Joost's videos.

CEO Mike Volpi acknowledged in an interview with CNET that the desktop client was one of the company's missteps but that the new browser-based player would provide ease of use, a high-quality video experience, and more content. The new site, according to Volpi, will even be less taxing on laptop batteries. News of Joost's new site was first reported by The Industry Standard.

But the big question that Joost must answer is whether the site overhaul comes too late to catch to Hulu or Google's YouTube.

Joost pounced onto the online-video scene with seemingly the right combination of founders, investors, and technology. The media instantly christened it a legitimate YouTube killer.

The start-up was the brainchild of Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, the founders of Skype and Kazaa. Among the backers were media conglomerates Viacom and CBS, parent company of CNET, publisher of News.com. Joost was powered by the same peer-to-peer technology that turned Skype and Kazaa into the most disruptive forces in the telephone and music sectors, respectively.

The public wasn't impressed. The content offering was thin. The player often stalled or stuttered, and it relied on the desktop client--meaning that you couldn't just log on to the Web from any computer to access your Joost account.

Volpi came on a year ago, and not much changed until January, when the company's CTO left and Volpi initiated a house cleaning. Volpi says it's still too early in the game to crown any site a winner.

"There is still ample opportunity to create a portal or aggregation site," Volpi said in an interview last week. "People will go where they can find the content they want."

Yes, but are Web video fans already used to getting what they want at Hulu, the company created by NBC Universal and News Corp? The competitor launched last spring to glowing press reviews, and traffic has continued to mushroom. A report issued this week by LiveRail reported that Hulu is probably already generating as much revenue as YouTube, which launched in 2005.

When it comes to YouTube, the Google property is still far and away the Internet's most popular video site. More than a third of every video viewed online is at YouTube. But YouTube is a user-generated site, with most of its content 10 minutes or shorter. Joost is much more like Hulu, a distribution platform for mostly professionally made content.

Volpi said Joost has greatly enhanced the content selection. The site will feature shows from Warner Bros., CBS, and Comedy Central, as well as other Viacom properties. Volpi said Joost will eventually offer a greater selection than Hulu. Volpi said Hulu offered little outside of the shows from NBC and Fox.

He called the selection "tired."

Joost's videos will follow a five-second advertisement or "preroll." Despite enabling users to embed video, the site will not concentrate on syndicating content.

"Our plan is to be a destination site where people go to watch their favorite shows," Volpi said.

Some critics declared video service Joost kaput when big-network rival Hulu debuted last spring, far exceeding expectations.

But Joost, founded by the team behind Skype and Kazaa, wants you to know it's still going strong. The company announced Monday that it now has more than 7,000 hours of video programming available and that it has hired former Dailymotion employees Danny Passman and John Schultz. They have joined the video start-up as global head of programming strategy and director of programming strategy, respectively. Both are also MTV Networks veterans.

The company has also made a number of other executive hires in recent weeks, from chief architect to chief financial officer.

One of the hurdles that Joost has faced is that you must download its client in order to stream its content; you can't stream directly from the Web. Joost representatives have said that a Web-based version of its software will be available sometime in 2008 and that it will start featuring more live programming. The service briefly reappeared on the tech chatter radar when it streamed every March Madness college basketball game live.

A British newspaper reported last month that Joost was slimming down some of its lofty global plans to focus more on the U.S. market.

Regardless, Joost says it's going strong, with 400 TV shows and 1,200 movies and short films in its line-up. That's a lot more than Hulu, which has 250 TV shows and 100 full-length movies, as well as clips from an additional 150 TV shows and 50 movies. But with the backing of NBC Universal and News Corp., Hulu has a leg up in the quality department: while Joost has deals with big conglomerates like Viacom, many of them haven't made their top-notch shows available to the video service.

This post was updated at 10:12 AM PT to correct the spelling of Joost CEO Mike Volpi's name.

Could a browser-based version of its peer-to-peer software save Joost, the heavily hyped video start-up founded by the creators of Skype and Kazaa?

Portfolio's Kevin Maney wrote a lengthy profile of the once-hot company, and buried inside is a juicy tidbit about a future development: "This year, viewers will be able to watch Joost videos in a browser window," the profile read. Right now, Joost requires a software download, which critics have said is one of its prime setbacks when just about every other online video start-up is browser-based. "Go to Joost's Web site, click on shows like Seth Green's edgy Robot Chicken or an old Rocky and Bullwinkle episode and you can watch them as easily as you'd watch a video on YouTube." Well, that all depends on the technology working as smoothly as YouTube, and the quality being up to par.

Representatives from Joost were not immediately available to confirm that a Web-based version of the video player is on track for later in 2008.

Joost could use a boost. Once touted as a "YouTube killer" that would address rampant online video piracy by offering professional content creators access to a high-quality video platform and revenue from top-notch advertisers, it fell from favor when the content proved tepid and more enticing competitors sprang up--namely Hulu, the joint video venture between NBC Universal and News Corp.

Recently, CBS Interactive President Quincy Smith, whose company counts Joost among the partners in its "Audience Network" of online video outlets, said that he hasn't given up on it and that CEO Mike Volpi "knows what he's doing."

And perhaps Joost can resuscitate itself. While the Web-based Joost remains shadowy, the company has been making other moves: experimenting with live TV programming, for one, starting with the NCAA basketball championship. It's a good PR move, as the availability of "March Madness" games has, at least for now, put Joost back into the vocabulary of Web users--and onto the computer screens of workplace procrastinators.

If you're a college basketball fan, March clearly holds a special place in your heart. It brings the NCAA tournament (also known as March Madness), along with the occasional bit of that annoying thing called work or school. If you're somehow in a position of being unable to make it to your giant, high-definition television, Joost's got you covered. The software-based video content network is streaming all of the games (with limited commercial interruption) live, as they happen.

The resolutions for the live streams is expected to fall in line with the rest of Joost's programming. This is aided by the fact that the stream is being given a hand by distributed P2P instead of a typical server farm--a system that's prone to fail or slow down without heavy infrastructure investment. Using distributed content serving can help, which is where Joost's P2P technology can show its chops for something other than prerecorded content.

To see how well the new system would handle the load, the company ran a stress test earlier today, utilizing the live user chat hooked up to a video feed from the company's offices. It didn't last too long though, as the streams were discontinued about an hour after their start at 11 a.m. PST.

The move is an important step in differentiating Joost from some Web-based content providers--notably Hulu, which left private beta yesterday and serves up archived television content (just like Joost). With the right participation of content providers, Joost could serve up live television streams (not just this test run with the NCAA) as they happen.

Live video streams will show up in the content source bar in Joost. Seen today are two of the five live feeds used to stress-test the new system.

(Credit: CNET Networks)