In case you’ve missed the hype previously, Joost is the latest venture from the team that bought the world Skype, billed as Skype does TV (or similar), Joost is essentially a P2P TV and Video viewing platform currently in private beta testing. This morning I finally received my invite to give Joost a whirl, and hence this review. I started with very few preconceived notions about the service, it’s had good reviews elsewhere, but I was particularly interested in the performance of the service given my extremely remote location (country Western Australia) in terms of internet access.

Intro

logging in takes you to the Joost blog, with download and forum areas evident. Rotating colorful shapes seem to the logo for it all.

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Originally posted on February 26, 2007 @ 9:34 pm

In 1997 I was still in school. I didn’t know what a blog was. Dave Winer and Doc Searls were blogging. I made my entrance into blogging a few years later. It’s very much at the center of my life. Strangely enough 10 years ago I could build a desk and I didn’t know much about blogs. Today I can’t put together a simple desk.

Many people didn’t think blogging would make it this long. I’m sure as heck glad it did. Here’s to another 10 years of blogging. I will be 37 by then and hopefully will have made as many mistakes as I did these last 10 years.

Originally posted on February 26, 2007 @ 3:21 am

For all the discussion lately about Professional Blogging, both here at 901am, Performancing and elsewhere, one name has continually sat in the back of my head: Arieanna Schweber. Arieanna is the only person I know to be anything close to resembling a professional blogger. When I first met Arieanna she was writing for something like 20-30 blogs. The number has since decreased, but she’s still making her living primarily first and foremost from blogging. What follows is my interview with her.

Would you call yourself a professional blogger, and if so why?

I use to call myself a professional blogger, but not only does that cause confusion (what’s a blog, how do you make money?), the continued misunderstanding of a blog as a ‘journal written by teenagers’ can devalue the work that one does ‘professionally’. The activities of ‘blogging’ are also unclear in the title, since as a hobbyist I might simply write a journal, but professionally, my aim has more purpose. Meaning, working with business clients to design and manage blogs, working on SEO, developing strong cohesive communities, and of course passing on my knowledge to other bloggers in b5[media]. I am part blogger, part consultant, part manager.

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Originally posted on February 21, 2007 @ 10:26 pm

Here are some interesting stories regarding YouTube.

Exemplifying the democratization of online media, the top YouTube videographers descended on San Francisco for a meet and greet.

YouTube is at odds with the media industry again, this time over the company’s policy over anti-piracy software licencing.

A new website called Mytuber allows you to search for YouTube videos and automatically insert them into your MySpace profile.

The lady that gained fame through YouTube under the moniker of ‘Lonelygirl15’ is starring in a movie with Lindsay Lohan. <sarcasm> The media is still trying to determine whether this is a step up or down. </sarcasm>

Originally posted on February 19, 2007 @ 2:32 pm