Joost Invites Available

Hello. You may have seen the small banner near the bottom-left of this blog mentioning a service called Joost. I have been a beta tester for it almost since its inception, and it's coming along pretty well.

What is Joost, you say? Well, in a nutshell, it's a website where you can view TV programs in much the same way that you might flip channels on your TV at home. There is content by some of the big cable companies, like MTV, National Geographic, and Cartoon Network, amongst others. What it isn't is live TV -- you aren't going to be able to view live network shows. But the limited content they have right now is fun, and more is being added all the time.

Check out the Joost promo video.

Per Joost themselves:

Joost is a new way of watching TV on the internet. With Joost, you get all the things you love about TV, including a high-quality full-screen picture, hundreds of full-length shows and easy channel-flipping.

You get great internet features too, such as search, chat and instant messaging, built right into the program - so you find shows quickly and talk to your friends while you watch. And with no schedules to worry about, you can watch whatever you want, whenever you like - as often as you want. Joost is completely free, and works with most modern PCs and Intel Mac-based computers with a broadband connection. Get Joost today!

Also, from the latest e-mail I received from them:

Last but not least, we invite you to enjoy the variety of new shows we're introducing each week. This week will bring you a host of over 40 new channels in the US including Adult Swim, five new channels from National Geographic, new channels like Spike TV from Viacom, great comedy from Heavy, and classic series from Hasbro such as The Transformers. And that's just the beginning.

And, as a beta tester, I've been given some invitations to hand out to folks that are interested in checking it out as they work through the beta phase of development. If you would like an invite, feel free to drop me a line via e-mail (please put "Joost Invite" in your subject line).

Finally, I don't know of anyone anymore that *doesn't* have a Google Gmail account. But if you're one of the few, and would like an invitation to open your own Gmail account, drop me a line about that as well.

iTunes Plug-In: DockArt

Here's a little Friday fun in honor of the upcoming weekend. I got tipped to this via the TUAW. It's a plug-in to use with iTunes called DockArt, and it does something pretty cool when you install it. It simply displays the album cover art (if you have it) of the iTunes track currently playing in your dock. Pretty sweet, huh? Oh, and it's free. Gotta have, now.

System requirements listed for the plugin are: iTunes 4.1 or higher, and QuickTime 6.4 or higher. Apparently, the latest version available does work with the latest release of iTunes, 7.1

DockArt

What's New in iTunes 7.1

Apple released an update to iTunes for all users yesterday, bringing folks up to iTunes 7.1. New features were promised in this release such as full-screen Cover Flow (album art) and support for AppleTV. There is a good article on the update on the iLounge site (for everything iPod).

Instant Expert: Secrets & Features of iTunes 7.1

Songbird 0.2 Version Released: MP3 Player and More

Songbird is an upcoming media player that owes much of its overall look to iTunes. However, whereas Songbird will play mp3s from your music library, it also goes beyond that functionality in what the site describes as a mashup between a "desktop Web player, a digital jukebox, and Web browser". Using built-in web pages listing mp3s, you can cruise to the webpage, see the music files as links, and then drag those files directly over into the library. Using the web browser aspect, you can add other bookmarks to music-hosting sites. You can also find and play videos. And oh yes, it's cross-platform capable -- Macs, Windows and Linux can all join in the fun.

Sound cool? It looks to be. To see a better description of how it all works, head on over to view a video demo, and grab yourself the latest Developer Preview, 0.2.

Songbird
Songbird Screencast