NEW YORK, NY and LONDON -- 10/14/08 --
Joost™ today launched its new
Flash-based, download-free global web video service at
www.joost.com. In
addition, Joost features a number of social tools which are designed to
help people navigate through the largest online library of legal video
programming and to integrate user expression directly into the service.
"People have always relied on their friends' recommendations to figure out
which movies they want to watch, or talked about their favorite TV shows
and moments with friends and colleagues -- and now Joost has combined those
real-life experiences in one online destination," said Mike Volpi, CEO,
Joost. "Our integrated social tools make it easier than ever for people to
find the shows, film and music they want to watch, and to form communities
around that content, which ultimately enriches their overall experience."
The new website features a number of ways that people can interact with
video and with other people on Joost: they can voice their opinions about
video through comments, "shouts" or tags; they can find out what their
friends are watching by adding friends through most major online webmail
services via the Friends section; or they may interact with others in the
Joost community through groups around their favorite shows, characters or
artists.
Also new is the JoostFeed, which aggregates all of the activities that are
happening on Joost in order to help guide a person's Joost experience. The
JoostFeed is viewable on Joost or can be exported to any online social tool
or website. Joost also is working with a number of third-party platforms,
including Boxee, chumby, Delicious, Digg, FriendFeed, Lifestream, Meebo,
Mister Wong, Netlog, Netvibes, reddit and VideoSurf, to make it easier for
people to use and access Joost across the web. In addition, Joost will
implement Facebook Connect, which allows people to enjoy Joost within the
context of their real identity and friendships on Facebook.
Today, Joost has more than 46,000 professionally produced videos for a
total of more than 8,000 hours of video entertainment. Some of Joost's
partners include CBS (Entertainment, News and Sports, and classic library
content), Showtime, Last.fm, Wallstrip, Moblogic; Viacom, including Atom,
BET, CMT, Comedy Central, LOGO, MTV, The N, Nickelodeon, Spike and VH1
programming; television series and full-length feature films from Sony
Pictures Television; and the Warner Bros. Television Group, which is
partnering with Joost on three branded channels in the U.S.: The WB
(featuring complete episodes of hit series, including "Friends," and
original digital productions from TheWB.com), Classic WB TV (boasting
full-length episodes of classic favorites from the Warner Bros. collection
of series) and WB Sci Fi Fix (featuring complete episodes of the Studio's
most popular science fiction titles).
Since January 1, 2008, the number of videos available on Joost has nearly
doubled, while the total number of hours has increased by more than 50
percent. Significantly, Joost's music catalog now includes more than 18,000
music videos from major record labels as well as a number of independent
labels.
In addition to the new social tools, Joost has implemented a new
programming guide which organizes content into three main categories:
Shows, Music and Film. Shows are divided into nine main genres -- action
and sports; animation; comedy; culture and style; drama, docs and reality
TV; news and gossip; science fiction and horror; sexy; and tech and gaming
-- and then further classified into subgenres, like anime in the case of
animation, or retro TV in the case of comedy. Music and film titles are
classified by genre, such as pop for music or drama for films.
Note to Media: Adobe® Flash® Player is the world's most pervasive software
platform... reaching 99.0% of Internet-enabled desktops in mature markets
as well as a wide range of devices. (Source: Millward Brown survey,
conducted June 2008 via
http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/)
About Joost
Founded by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, Joost brings video and social
interaction together online. All of the video on Joost is professionally
produced and streams on-demand to people around the world for free in a
high-quality format. Today, Joost has more than 40,000 program elements,
including more than 400 television series and 1,200 movie and short film
titles. For more information, visit www.joost.com.
Contact information:
UK
Kate Larkin
UK Mobile: +44 791 788 2921
US Mobile: +1 917 488 7852
Email: Email Contact
US
Kerry Vance
Mobile: +1 646 330 0737
Office: +1 212 295 5866
Email: Email Contact
