Viacom, Joost strike deal
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Feb 20, 2007 at 2:22pm
Viacom has announced a deal to license its programming content to Joost, the online-video start-up created by the founders of Skype and Kazaa, reports CNET. The deal will bring television and theatrical content from Viacom’s brands—which include MTV Networks’ Comedy Central, as well as Black Entertainment Television and Paramount Pictures—to the Joost software upon its full launch.
The deal is limited, at least at first: many of Viacom’s most popular programs, such as Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report and South Park, will not be available initially, notes CNET. Some of the featured offerings, however, will be MTV’s My Super Sweet 16, Comedy Central’s Freak Show, BET’s American Gangster, as well as feature films from Paramount and its related brands. No financial terms of the agreement were provided.
A Mac compatible beta version of Joost, a global TV distribution platform, was recently released. Created by the folks who came up with Skype, the peer-to-peer streaming technology is designed to provide a new way of watching TV on the Internet, which uses new and established technologies.
Co-founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, Joost fills a critical gap in the online video entertainment arena, according to spokesperson Alice Regester. It’s powered by a “secure, efficient, piracy-proof Internet platform that enables premium interactive video experiences while guaranteeing copyright protection for content owners and creators,” she adds. Joost can be accessed with a broadband Internet connection and offers content to viewers for free.
Currently, Joost channels are like playlists of videos. You can flip between channels, or use the program guide to choose a channel or a video to watch. The channels start when you play them and not at any particular day or time. If you let them continue they will loop round to the beginning again. If you change channel and then switch back again, you’ll start at the beginning of the program again. In later versions the Joosters will have different kinds of channels, including ones that behave more like ordinary TV channels (including the occasional ad).
Check out the offerings at Mac OS Ken and The Video Sandbox, Macsimum New’s media partners. And don’t forget: the “Macsimum Valentine’s Day Coupon Book” is now available. It’s a 2.2MB, PDF, downloadable coupon book with discounts, special offers and promotions in conjunction with Valentine’s Day. Double click it to open.
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
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