Re:Why did Skype succeed and Joost fail?
by ThomPete on Tuesday June 15, 2010 @11:04AM
(#1432931)
They are two very different products and I don't really see the benefit in comparing them, unless of course the question is, why did Nicklas and Janus get Skype (and Kazaar semi) right but joost wrong.
The reason why Skype worked is because it took something that we all needed and wanted and made it fairly simple and attractive. The use of the IM metaphor was the right choice and it pretty successfully manage to stay in the background without interfering unless it was in use. It was an addendum to other tools. You could still use skype even when you weren't using it actively. It also was impossible for telcos of course to touch really touch it once they realized what was going to happen to them.
Joost on the other hand required you to stop everything you where doing in order to use it fully. It couldn't work in the background as the whole idea was "grouphug" tv. Second of all it didn't manage to get proper content.
In my mind the question should be. Why did Hulu succeed and Joost fail. And to that the answer is rather simple. Content.
But I do believe Hulu would have been much less successful if they had taken the application approach. They didn't and instead managed to slowly build up joost as it should have been one natural step at a time.
The reason why Skype worked is because it took something that we all needed and wanted and made it fairly simple and attractive. The use of the IM metaphor was the right choice and it pretty successfully manage to stay in the background without interfering unless it was in use. It was an addendum to other tools. You could still use skype even when you weren't using it actively. It also was impossible for telcos of course to touch really touch it once they realized what was going to happen to them.
Joost on the other hand required you to stop everything you where doing in order to use it fully. It couldn't work in the background as the whole idea was "grouphug" tv. Second of all it didn't manage to get proper content.
In my mind the question should be. Why did Hulu succeed and Joost fail. And to that the answer is rather simple. Content.
But I do believe Hulu would have been much less successful if they had taken the application approach. They didn't and instead managed to slowly build up joost as it should have been one natural step at a time.