Joost hunts down talent, avoids UGC

Joost is hiring talent scouts Creative Artists Agency to get Hollywood programming onto its service. Along with well known programming and a clutch of top advertisers Joost wants to offer shows from independent professional video makers rather than “wild” UGC/social media. Joost has $45 million from five backers and signed Viacom and sister company CBS for content recently.

Pandora goes mobile in the US

The online personalised music streaming service Pandora has signed a deal with US carrier Sprint to be pre-installed or downloaded to handsets. Pandora and other web broadcasters have been heavily hit by recent increases in the licensing fees for web broadcasters in the US. Pandora has also had to stop streaming outside the US. The new Sprint venture means a badly needed extra revenue stream on top of advertising. Pandora

Joost launches, expands invites

Joost, the online television service from Skype and Kazaa founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, launches today. Current beta testers will now get an unlimited number of invites, after being limited to five till now. A number of leading advertisers including Coca-Cola, Nike, General Motors and Visa will start ad campaigns this month. The latest version is available for download from existing users and those invited to join. While most

What is Joost capable of?

In a great article about Joost, The Guardian’s Owen Gibson looks at the main points behind the services. Jost will “split” the signal so it cannot be pirated, and there will be no user content until copyright issues are sorted out. Joost also lets you construct your own channels and will pull together all the available car content and “schedule” it into a bespoke channel for you. You can chat