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It's interesting to see alliances forming between various startups like Meebo and Joost. I used Joost heavily for a week back in May, but quickly ran out of interesting content. I'll have to go back and see if there's anything really worth "tuning in" for now.
At the time, there were some interesting movies on their independent film "channel" but they didn't get new content regularly enough. Pretty soon I had seen everything I wanted to see, and haven't really checked back in a while.
This is where Hulu beats Joost (for now). They have serialized content -- stuff that you'll come back for to see next week's episode, or to see what's new. For Joost to survive, it'll need more than an alliance with another startup; Joost will need some stronger media alliances. A deal with major network or studio seems like a must.
For Meebo, on the other hand, this deal is a big win. They get additional press as well as exposure to a large audience of Joost users. Meebo has already begun forging alliances with media (primarily in the music business) with their "skins" feature, and this could set them up for similar partnerships with the content owners.
It's easy to envision "Meebo-powered" chat rooms embedded in a network TV show's website -- i.e. "Chat with other 'House' fans while you watch tonight's episode." As more and more people sign on for Meebo accounts, and because their chat rooms are IM agnostic, Meebo could become the de facto standard for web-based chat.
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