iPhone News Updated

Joost gets back on our radar with iPhone app

Men in Black playing on Joost’s new iPhone app.

If ever there was a Web service that experienced a rapid fall from grace, it was online video start-up Joost. What started out as a much anticipated new service ultimately fell short of expectations and has recently struggled for attention. Friday, Joost released an iPhone app for its service that might be a game changer. Joost’s iPhone app lets users stream and watch any of Joost’s 46,000-plus videos for free.

Say what you will about Joost’s library of content, the concept behind this app is fantastic. The ability to stream a movie, TV show, or other piece of video content on the go is great. I know the technology is nothing revolutionary–after all the iPhone has had a YouTube app, complete with streaming video, since the device launched. Even given that, when you load up Men in Black on Joost, it just feels like a whole different ballgame. This isn’t a video of a dog on a skateboard anymore. This is real, Hollywood-produced content, delivered to your phone, for free.

I have not experienced the major hiccups that very early users, like MG Siegler did, so those issues seem to have been taken care of. I did notice some occassional stuttering of the stream over Wi-Fi. I am, however, disheartened by the lack of streaming support over EDGE or 3G. Joost requires a Wi-Fi connection to work.

Even though Joost appears to have a really slick UI (in many ways it does), it breaks some of the conventions for UI design set forth by Apple. Flicking to view the next page of search results does work. However, it does not slide over as you would expect, rather a spinning wheel is displayed while the next page loads. Joost also did not implement the incremental find that we have all grown accustomed to for searching.

For me, Joost’s iPhone app falls just short of greatness. I really like what they are going for here, but I would certainly like to see more content added to Joost’s library and support for 3G at the very least, if not EDGE. Even though the videos appear to choke at times, even over Wi-Fi, 3G should be more than capable of streaming video.

I hope that Hulu and Netflix, with their expansive content libraries, are paying attention to what Joost is doing because they are both prime candidates for this sort of mobile application. I get excited just thinking about having access to all of those videos (almost) anytime I want.

Originally posted at The Web Services Report
http://news.cnet.com

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eBay Companies See Black Friday Shoppers Clicking for Great Deals

Black Friday saw a buzz of shopping activity, as consumers took to their computers to snap up hot holiday gifts. eBay Inc. companies, including PayPal and Shopping.com, all saw consumers going online for great deals. The companies reported key online shopping trends, popular categories and hot gifts.

”Results from Black Friday show that shoppers continue to turn to the Web for their holiday shopping needs, especially for consumer electronics,“ said Jim ”Griff“ Griffith, eBay Marketplace Expert. ”Online shopping is convenient and allows consumers to find the best values and vast selection. Shoppers can visit eBay and Shopping.com to purchase all of their holiday items at unbeatable prices, and can pay quickly and securely with PayPal.“

Shoppers are Clicking for Deals

With money tighter than ever, shoppers are hitting the Web to find the best values for their hard-earned cash. A recent Nielsen study found that 78 percent of adult online users made a purchase on the Web in the past six months.¹ Additionally, a recent survey conducted by Survey.com on behalf of eBay found that getting ”great deals“ was the most important criteria for shoppers when choosing where to shop online this holiday season.
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