Joost says its “test” of live P2P video from the NCAA tournament went pretty well. At least it did for the marketing department.
Here was the warning basketball fans encountered in the days leading up to Joost’s premiere NCAA effort. Nothing unusual here. Sounds like the typical online sports experience:
“This is a test of our live P2P streaming service. It’s a pretty complex technology, and we fully expect things to go wrong. The stream may stutter, slow, or stop altogether. If your stream does stop, we recommend restarting the channel — that usually works. Otherwise, you might have to re-start Joost. We apologize for any inconveniences, but your participation will help us build a stable live service!”
Apparently this participation boiled down to filling out a fairly standard marketing form, with questions like “What live programming would you like to watch on Joost?”
Joost says it “had a couple of glitches in the first round, but we learned a lot and are ready for the round of 32.” Reviews from users seemed mixed.
The video comes straight from March Madness rights-holder CBS. So why not just go to cbssports.com for its March Madness On Demand? As they say, “Avoid the lines.”
Someone trying to watch their team on CBS can end up waiting 15, 20 minutes to get a signal. Also, CBS really, really wants you to sign up first, then use Internet Explorer, although a plug-in or two might get the game via Firefox. A pain, just like it’s been since day 1 of the streaming Madness.
The Joost “test” seems like a pretty good marketing campaign, which many “betas” have become in recent times. At least emailing users about the NCAA tourney beats coming up with something about Joost’s latest offering, “Hercules vs. the Moon Men.”
Meanwhile, CBS is taking some Internet heat over the bogus results in its NCAA basketball bracket application on Facebook, TechCrunch reports.
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