P2P IPTV Hots Up With Joost Competitor
Joost finally has a competitor in the P2P IPTV market with the appearance last week of Babelgum. With many pundits hyping this as the next big thing, these applications allow you to flip through channels (or create your own perosonalised channels) and then stream shows straight to your computer. Both have heavy backing with Skype and Kazaa legends Niklas Zenstrom and Janus Friis financing Joost, while FASTWEB founder Silvio Scaglia is behind Babelgum.
Joost has been greatly benefited by first mover advantage and early buzz with major content deals with Viacom, CNN, Sony, and the NHL and even taking some of these partners on as investors. Babelgum is currently only streaming more generic content, although it has just signed Spike Lee and is screening some of his movie footage.
The big difference is probably in the social networking side, with Joost offering chat and other social widgets, while Babelgum apparently having none.
Early reviews of the application and interface pitch Babelgum as behind the Joost eight ball at this stage, but all agree that competition in this exciting area will ultimately drive innovation, and that's clearly a good thing.
Meanwhile, I'll keep spending the odd lunchtime watching Ultimate Fighting on Joost, less so for the lure of the content, but more because I love the new technology.
/dp
