Joost To Have Chat Via Meebo

[TechCrunch]

New online video startup Joost may have been somewhat overshadowed by Hulu news the last month or so, but that doesn’t mean they’ve disappeared entirely.

Tonight they’ve announced a very cool new feature to the service - instant messaging, via Meebo. Integration for now is via Joost widgets. Over time the feature will likely transitioned into a more direct integration.

Joost is starting to play the numbers game, claiming 15,000 shows and 250 channels. Depth is great and all, but what users really want to see is the good stuff. That’s where Hulu, despite its faults, has a big stronghold. Joost needs to have the compelling content, not just the long tail.


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[Jeff]

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.