Joost Goes Online

Starting a couple of days ago you can find all of Joost’s content directly on its website and not only via its desktop client. Although Joost's video quality was very high right from the start, back in 2006, and it had attending a large variety of content producers, relying totally on a desktop client brought it close to failure. Since users had already tasted the convenience of viewing video online it was only natural they would find the effort of starting up a client only for watching video simply unworthy.

For the time being, installing a plugin for your browser is still required if you want to watch videos on Joost, but from October, the service will embrace an entirely Flash-based system. Watching HD content and live video will still necessitate the plugin.

Although its P2P architecture is no longer the supporting structure, the video quality offered by the service remains an excellent one, particularly in full-screen mode. Still it is below the quality of 'HD' offering of ABC or Vimeo.

The latest improvement also addresses the social aspect of Joost’s features which has evolved. For example, now you are able to share videos with your friends on Joost with great ease and join one of the newly formed Joost groups. Additionally, all the material viewed by you gets stored in your 'JoostFeed'and can be made public.

Owing to its dependence on a plugin, Joost’s offering doesn’t include the ability to embed videos. Most likely this will change once Joost has switched to employing Flash.