Joost opens to the public

P2P streaming TV site Joost is now available to the general public, though still in beta, as the company says it still has one or two technical problems to iron out.

The service has released a new version of its video player with a fully redesigned user interface that provides greater flexibility when searching or navigating through content.  

Users can also create their own personalised channels by dragging and dropping programme icons to a playlist on the screen.

Joost has been successful in building a buzz around its product, and has been seeing around 50,000 downloads of its beta version each week. It recently announced that 1m people have participated in beta testing.

With the public release, the company hopes to reach more than 2m users by the end of the year.

General reactions to Joost have been favourable, though the content on offer will always be a problem, especially for UK users, given the US focus of much of the programming on offer.

Joost recently partnered with Paramount to provide movies for UK and European users, but will struggle to match the range of content available online from UK broadcasters, especially the BBC's iPlayer.

Meanwhile, Tape It Off The Internet (TIOTI.com), which indexes online TV and video content on the web, has also been launched to the general public for the first time.

TIOTI does not host the content on its site - it just points users to sources where they can view and download TV shows and video, including Joost.

It has also launched a social network, allowing users to connect with friends, see what shows they are viewing and make recommendations

Related stories:
Joost rival Babelgum goes live
Joost nets $45m in VC funding 

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