Mathieu Nouzareth's Blog

Is Joost web 2.0 ?

The more I play with Joost, the more I like it. What strike me though is that they opted for technical choices that do not seem obvious those days, when everyone wants to move everything online:

• Joost a a desktop app and not a web app (it is about 17mb to download)
• Joost is not a social network site, although it uses social networks features
• Joost is not about User Generated Content but about Professionally Generated Content (see the announcement they just made about advertisers coming to the platform, everyone knows it will be almost impossible to bring big advertisers to UGC platforms)

Is this the beginning of a new trend ?

Jajah cool feature

One function that I like a lot in Jajah is the ability to schedule call in advance. Since I have a lot of conference call every week, it is not unusual for me to forget about them. So now i schedule the call directly in Jajah and I get called at the exact time of the conf call.

Let's put an end to country restrictions on cultural goods !

Apparently the EU is launching a probe on Itunes for possible violation of competition rules. The issue is that Apple prevents buyers from one country from buying music on another store store from another country. For example if your Itunes account is in the UK (with a UK credit card) you will be prevented from buying the same song on the French Itunes store (which are cheaper btw). Off course this is against EU regulations.

I personally live half of my time in New York and the other half in Paris. I have two apartments, two credit credit cards, two mobile phone plan, etc... For Itunes, I had to choose which country I can buy from and this a major pain in the neck. As I have chosen the US Itunes store, I just can't buy music on the French Itunes store anymore !

I think it is time to rethink the territoriality concept in cultural goods. It's been a long time since the internet has rendered the country/regions restriction concept completely obsolete and useless. Like DRM, it is even counterproductive for content owner and fosters piracy, leaving a lot of money on the table. And content owner should also remember that the language barrier is probably the best protection. Who will actually go to a Chinese web site to order a cheaper song/video/game anyway ?

Isn't it time content owner be ready to take the same bold step as DRM and say no to country/regions restrictions ?

Joost UI is beautiful

I am currently testing Joost and the UI is fantastic. Off course, like everyone else those days, they borrow a lot from Apple ;-)

Of interest, they really use social networks only as features, to enhance the viewing experience. For example you can chat with people watching the same show as you.

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Online games the next hot thing in 2007 ?

From Nabeel Hyatt blog: "online games compare very well indeed to the other hot topics of the Internet. Social networks may have owned 2006, but online games look great from a velocity perspective for 2007/08"

He was referring to a new feature of Compete.com (much better than Alexa) that compares "Attention" and "Velocity" of web sites. Here is an example:

Is DRM dead ?

Great move today by Apple and EMI. EMI will be offering DRM free songs for higher price. I believe this is a great move, as they will increase monetization of people who are willing to pay (with a higher quality) and let the others who are illegally downloading anyway.

"We are going to give iTunes customers a choice -- the current versions of our songs for the same 99 cent price, or new DRM-free versions of the same songs with even higher audio quality and the security of interoperability for just 30 cents more," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We think our customers are going to love this"

In my company (Boonty), we still use DRM to protect some games. We would like to test DRM free games but content owner are still reluctant to do so. The problem with DRM is that it is very often punishing honest people in hope of catching the thieves. Solving the DRM dilemma has always been very tricky and non one has come up with the right solution so far.

By the way we only protect single player games, as multiplayer games available on cafe.com do not require DRM by nature since you have to open an account that is verified each time you login. Maybe piracy can be solved with communities ?