NewTeeVee breaks the news that Joost CTO DirkWillem has been terminated from Joost. Joost is a very cool, popular P2P based media delivery system that is just about downright fun to play with.
It looks like the issue centers on where Dirk is going next.
To the BBC to work on the IPlayer according to NewTeeVee:
In a release, the BBC said van Gulik would be “responsible for the design and construction of the BBC’s next generation back-end infrastructure to support all interactive services including bbc.co.uk, BBCi and BBC Mobile.” Source: NewTeeVee
Just about any monkey on this one is going to get what is going to happen next, no one can help taking ideas from one company to another company. And you can bet that while Dirk has few if any technical knowledge of the code behind Joost, you can bet that he has a lot of practical knowledge on how the system works.
BBC just got a person on board who has unique knowledge that is held by few on how to design, develop, manage and maintain a world wide P2P based media delivery system. Exactly what the BBC needs for the Iplayer if they ever pull the geographic restrictions from their stuff.
This should end badly.
My only hope is that he will NOT work on the iPlayer. Just install Joost on your computer to see why..
But the real problem with Joost is not its too-resource-hungry and way-too-fancy user interface, but the fact that the company is not even trying to understand the consumer.
What do consumers want? A simple, reliable, convenient way to access high-quality content.
What does Joost provide? A complicated, unreliaable, inconvenient way to access pure junk.
Well, dear Joost. you know what? For THAT I might as well go to Napster or any file sharing program and find the video there – at least my computer will not get hogged then..
WHAT WERE YOU THINKING ????
Don’t you get it? It is all about the CONSUMER! Hello……