Hey Joost, Have Some Babelgum (With Screenshots)
Joost, nee The Venice Project, hasn’t even officially launched yet, so it would be premature to declare them the victors in bringing the television experience to an internet device near you. Plenty of other people are out there trying to figure out ways to use broadband to disrupt current distribution models and make some change in the process, including Silvio Scaglia. The founder of Fastweb and Omnitel has invested EU10 million in his own IPTV venture, Babelgum.
Talking to the Financial Times, Scaglia remarked, “When I started work on this a year and a half ago I was afraid we’d end up with five [competing IPTV services]…The fact it’s still two probably gives us a good lead.” We gave the beta a spin, and while it’s certainly a charmingly simple and effective product, just being early to the table doesn’t guarantee you a larger share of the meal.
What Babelgum lacks right now is a compelling differentiator — it needs to offer better content, better features or better technology than Joost and any other upstarts if it wants to win.
What I looked at “is a simplified version of the service that will be released when we go public,” according to the beta download page. Simplicity is one of its most endearing qualities, though: it looks and feels a lot like watching television, as it was probably meant to. The interface is slick and straightforward — no instructions were provided or, frankly, needed to get comfortable. The download and install took just a few minutes, and once logged in, the video content began straight away.
You can choose to view Babelgum in a window or full screen, and can choose between three different video display sizes within that box (though only one resolution, up-sampled). Controls pop up when you move your mouse, and include a small ‘remote’ for changing channels or adjust volume, a slider showing the length of the program, and general controls to view channel and program info, organize bookmarked videos and change your settings. And that’s about it.
The technical specifications aren’t particularly demanding — Windows XP with Quicktime 7 installed running on a 1GHz Pentium with half a gig of memory and a decent video card. My 2005 Thinkpad had no trouble with it, and the streaming and playback seemed smooth over my 150KBps DSL connection. Granted, the video quality on a screen any bigger than 15″ wouldn’t be acceptable, which puts it ahead of YouTube, behind unauthorized downloads, and about even with Joost.
The channels themselves weren’t particularly compelling, but I understand the difficulty in acquiring a lot of content (or revealing your license partners) this early in the game. There are movie trailers, canned reports from AP and Reuters, episodes of Rocketboom and one channel that’s just commercials. (Which is actually something I’ve been arguing should have been done years ago — and no, MTV doesn’t count).
The only real interactivity is in the ability to drill down to clips through the TV menu and add them to your video favorites, where you can then further lump them into folders — what you can’t do yet is watch, or offer, a stream of your favorites as a custom channel. You can also rate episodes, presumably so that a recommendation system can be added later. You also can’t tag a clip as a favorite while it’s playing on the main screen, which would seem the most natural place to do it.
It’s in this area of tension between just watching the lights flicker by and actually tagging and organizing content that somebody will find the sweet spot. YouTube isn’t something you can just sit back and watch, but does offer powerful tools for searching, linking and ranking content to make it more findable. As it stands, Babelgum is still on the other end of the spectrum — it’s great at just pushing a constant stream of stuff to watch, but customizing your experience is limited.
Having taken the long tail view to heart, Babelgum is looking to sign up lots and lots of niche content, both from big clearinghouses like the wire services who like non-exclusive deals and from independent producers such as vloggers with a professional touch. It’s free to add your content and they’re guaranteeing $5 per 1000 views of a clip. While I didn’t see how ads will be deployed, that’s what’s expected to pay for it all. Content rights security is accomplished through unspecified DRM and by virtue of the content being free to view anyway.
While it will be interesting to see what features are added and whether or not content compelling enough to attract an involved community are in Babelgum’s future, they haven’t convinced me that they, or anyone else in the space, is going to be truly disruptive. If it catches fire in the vlogosphere and signs up a major network or two to provide content, then I could see it as worthy of some veg-out sessions. But there’s still plenty of room for someone to wait until both Joost and Babelgum launch, fix what’s wrong with their approaches, and beat them both.
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[…] to the “parasitic applications” camp is amazing.” No comments Share/Send Sphere Topic: Startups Tags:none […]
GigaOM » Lets get some Bablegum on January 17th, 2007 at 10:25 am - Permalink
Good to have competition, as it can only lead to better products. I have not gotten the chance to beta test the product yet, so your screenshots were interesting. I also did a brief interview with the CEO Erik Lumer, who seems like a capable guy. The impression I got (not sure if it is correct) was that he is running the show, whereas Scaglia provides the funds.
Ossi on January 17th, 2007 at 12:06 pm - Permalink
[…] Thank you Erik for the insight. We will monitor Babelgum closely, and keep you posted on new developments. We have not yet had a chance to test the service, and thus cannot comment on its quality (though NewTeevee has some screenshots). Based on Erik’s comments it seems that we should not expect the service to be offering TV shows such as Lost and the like, as it seems to focus more on “the long tail of content“, which refers to Chris Anderson’s theory about the commercial importance of the large majority of goods that never become best sellers. To put it in the context of content, one could say that for every Lost (yes, I am a fan) there are nine Wheel of Fortune type shows which, taken together, are more watched than Lost. Babelgum seems to wish to focus its content offering on the large amount of shows that never become hits. […]
EuroValley » Blog Archives » Interview with Babel Networks CEO Erik Lumer on January 17th, 2007 at 12:26 pm - Permalink
[…] read more | digg story […]
Forget Joost, Get Babelgum « Universe_JDJ’s News Blog on January 17th, 2007 at 1:56 pm - Permalink
[…] NewTeeVee argues in its preliminary review of the service that while the Babelgum feels a lot like watching TV, and has a slick and straightfoward interface: […]
Babelgum to compete with Joost in IPTV | Logicbank Media on January 17th, 2007 at 2:16 pm - Permalink
These sites and services like this are going to be Channels, Channels, Channels, and I think surely the one with the best content will win over ones with better interfaces. (unless its all out unusable)
Motorcycling Guy on January 17th, 2007 at 5:03 pm - Permalink
competition is good for us users :)
agloco on January 17th, 2007 at 5:51 pm - Permalink
[…] Hey Joost, Have Some Babelgum (With Screenshots) You can choose to view Babelgum in a window or full screen, and can choose between three different video display sizes within that box. Specs: XP with Quicktime 7 installed running on a 1GHz Pentium with half a gig of memory and a decent video card (tags: iTV) […]
Planeta Debian » links for 2007-01-18 on January 17th, 2007 at 8:04 pm - Permalink
The problem with all P2P TV solutions is that ISP’s who also want to provide VOD wont want to foot the Bubblebum or Joost bill.
Read more here.
http://zuluzulu.wordpress.com/2006/12/11/will-the-venice-project-save-tv/
Wessel on January 18th, 2007 at 2:09 am - Permalink
[…] Tommaso l’aveva già provato a dicembre, ma sembra che ora chiunque possa partecipare alla fase di beta-testing del progetto Babelgum di Silvio Scaglia (presidente di Fastweb). Newteevee, il nuovo progetto editoriale del Gigaom Network (grande Malik!), l’ha provato e recensito per noi… Quando riceverò un invito farò lo stesso! Intanto potete leggere la mia prova di Joost The Venice Project. […]
Babelgum, il concorrente di Joost (The Venice Project) - VOIPBLOG.IT on January 18th, 2007 at 6:18 am - Permalink
[…] read more | digg story […]
Forget Joost, Get Babelgum « Element J: My World on January 18th, 2007 at 6:47 am - Permalink
[…] Hey Joost, Have Some Babelgum (With Screenshots) You can choose to view Babelgum in a window or full screen, and can choose between three different video display sizes within that box. Specs: XP with Quicktime 7 installed running on a 1GHz Pentium with half a gig of memory and a decent video card (tags: iTV) […]
All in a days work… on January 20th, 2007 at 5:17 pm - Permalink
[…] Tras los numerosos artículos publicados sobre Joost la semana pasada (incluido el publicado en este blog ), en diversos medios han aparecido otros (como en GigaOM, NewTeVee o EuroTelcoblog) en los que se presenta a Babelgum como alternativa a Joost. Aunque todavía no hay muchos beta testers, algunos ya hayan publicado sus impresiones, como el autor del blog Chaotica, que afirma que la aplicación se lanza más rápido y que la calidad de imagen es mejor que la de Joost. También se ha publicado un artículo en NewTeVee en el que se afirma que la calidad de imagen de Babelgum es buena y su manejo sencillo. Además en este mismo artículo podréis encontrar varias capturas de pantalla de Babelgum. […]
Mi otro blog… » Blog Archive » Babelgum, una alternativa a Joost on January 22nd, 2007 at 1:31 pm - Permalink
[…] 15 invites to ultra cool Babelgum, a P2P service folks at NewTeeVee simply love.150 invites to Joost, aka The Venice Project. We convinced the company that our readers are the very best in the world to tinker around with their beta software. 1500 FON wifi routers, for free, which means no shipping also. Not a dime, dinero…nada. This is the fastest way to get around their “invite only” promotional strategy. All you have to do is click on this page and let them know where the device needs to be shipped. Usual disclaimers apply. So how do you get in on the action? For Babelgum and Joost, just leave your email address and we will send an invite. You get to pick one of the two, and it is first come first get basis. For FON just visit this special promotions page. […]
GigaOM » Giveaway Thursday: FON Wi-Fi routers, Joost and some Babelgum on January 31st, 2007 at 10:47 am - Permalink
Don’t know if I made the cutoff for the promos so I am posting both places. I think this type of TV will be BIG!
Doug K on January 31st, 2007 at 12:52 pm - Permalink
Please send me an invite.
Vikas Sah
http://www.technacular.com
Vikas Sah on January 31st, 2007 at 1:05 pm - Permalink
i’d love a babelgum invite
Antonio on January 31st, 2007 at 1:16 pm - Permalink
thanks for the invite
rk966 on January 31st, 2007 at 1:45 pm - Permalink
PLEASE send me an Babelgum Invite!!!!
CoolJoe on January 31st, 2007 at 3:06 pm - Permalink
Invite me please
Mike on January 31st, 2007 at 3:19 pm - Permalink
Hey all would love an invite to check this cool thing out!!!
JK on January 31st, 2007 at 3:57 pm - Permalink
I’d love an invite! plz send!
Dan Willis on January 31st, 2007 at 4:31 pm - Permalink
Would love an invite.
D P on January 31st, 2007 at 4:34 pm - Permalink
An invite would be great!
John Smith on January 31st, 2007 at 4:57 pm - Permalink
I’d love an invite!
Franco on January 31st, 2007 at 8:05 pm - Permalink
You can try BabelGum now by following the directions here: (download the app and use “test” as the username and password without quotes)
http://www.usefuel.com/index.php/full/trybabelgumnow/
Spartacus on February 1st, 2007 at 2:27 am - Permalink
[…] Ganz offensichtlich, bekommt Joost im Internet Konkurrenz, “Babalgum” nennt sich der Herausforderer und soll so Ähnlich wie Joost funktionieren. Der Hersteller der Software “Fastweb” ist einer der Führenden Internetprovider in Italien. Er hat laut eigenen angaben rund 10 Millionen Euro in de Projekt investiert. Bekannt geworden ist Babalgum erst, nachdem Joost an die Öffentlichkeit getreten ist. Nun sind erstmals auch Bilder von der Software im Internet aufgetaucht. […]
Joost -TV for Free- » Blog Archive » Joost bekommt Konkurrenz on February 1st, 2007 at 3:52 am - Permalink
I would also like an invite :)
Ego on February 1st, 2007 at 5:41 am - Permalink
I would like an invite please.
Max Peters on February 1st, 2007 at 8:56 am - Permalink
The invites were distributed by Om, I’ll try to get some more.
Marco on February 2nd, 2007 at 4:15 am - Permalink
can you send one invitation to me kamistar@gmail.com
kamistar on February 2nd, 2007 at 5:21 am - Permalink
I would love an invite as well.
Thanks in advance.
shaz on February 2nd, 2007 at 8:01 pm - Permalink
PLEASE send me an Babelgum Invite!!!!
Thanks a lot!!!
cubanito on February 5th, 2007 at 6:48 am - Permalink
[…] Looking for a review of Babelgum? NewTeeVee was one of the first sites to post a detailed review of Babelgum. Liquilife also has a review with screenshots. Among the highlights: […]
Some Babelgum Reviews on February 5th, 2007 at 9:17 am - Permalink
send me an invite folks!
Lior on February 11th, 2007 at 4:36 am - Permalink
One for me too.
Thanks in advance
SUSHIL KHEKARE on February 11th, 2007 at 10:44 pm - Permalink
[...] Το joost (αρχικά γνωστό ως Venice Project) είναι το τελευταίο project των δημιουργών του Kazaa και του Skype. Περιληπτικά, θα έλεγα ότι είναι P2P TV + chat. Πρόσφατα έκαναν συμφωνία με την Viacom, “ιδιοκτήτρια” content όπως MTV, Daily Show, SouthPark… Περισσότερες πληροφορίες μπορείτε να βρείτε και εδώ. [...]
vrypan|net|weblog » Joost on March 1st, 2007 at 1:12 am - Permalink
Will you please send me a token/invite? :)
TY! I will be sure to let you know what I think.
~ Daniela
Daniela on March 5th, 2007 at 12:29 pm - Permalink
We’re working in this space. Pre-launch we’d love you to take a look. In the meantime an invite to Babelgum would be greatly appreciated
Harvey Cameron on March 17th, 2007 at 9:06 am - Permalink
I love an invite. Thanks.
Peace,
~V
V. FulbrightWoods on March 21st, 2007 at 3:04 pm - Permalink
I’ve been trying the Joost beta and it is pretty sweet. It is really easy to install and use and the videos look great.
Jigsaw hc on March 23rd, 2007 at 11:11 am - Permalink
We’d love an invite to Joost and Babelgum - they sound very interesting!
smgTV on March 31st, 2007 at 8:11 am - Permalink
[...] Otras opciones de Televisión P2P son Zattoo (incluyendo programas en directo) y Babelgum: [...]
Televisión 2.0 « Pastillas de tecnología on April 9th, 2007 at 3:10 am - Permalink
[...] often compared to Joost (see our early review from this January), says it will focus on niche content that is not available elsewhere online [...]
NewTeeVee » Babelgum Launching in One Week on April 11th, 2007 at 1:13 pm - Permalink
please, send me a babelgum invite/token!
sefirothmorpheus@gmail.com
sefirothmorpheus on April 13th, 2007 at 3:17 am - Permalink
[...] TV: Joost and Babelgum are just a start. More like Zattoo are joining the [...]
GigaOM » P2P, now for Pretty Much Everything on April 15th, 2007 at 11:45 pm - Permalink
Please send me an invite.
Janewit Kraprayoon on April 19th, 2007 at 8:19 am - Permalink
Cool}Cool!
Dino on April 21st, 2007 at 11:01 pm - Permalink
please, send me a babelgum invite
p on April 27th, 2007 at 6:59 am - Permalink
If there is any invitation to Babelgum left i would be delighted to have one.
Anders on April 28th, 2007 at 3:32 am - Permalink
A break from the past - this could be interesting. Please send me an invite! Thanks.
Sanjay on April 29th, 2007 at 9:26 pm - Permalink
May I have an invite, please? Thank you!
SOMAR on May 1st, 2007 at 6:29 pm - Permalink
Could you send me an invite to Babelgum, please?
Wojt on May 4th, 2007 at 4:01 am - Permalink
Hi all, I’m a lucky Joost tester.Now, I would like to test Bablegum if any one have an invitation. This will give me an opportunity to see the difference between two. I would exchange one inviataion of Joost for one invitation of Bablegum. Anyone interested??
bluelog[at]gmail[dot]com
Mariusz on May 4th, 2007 at 1:58 pm - Permalink
i would like to have a joost invite please thank you
jmjessic@gmail.com
jess on May 5th, 2007 at 6:54 pm - Permalink
Can i have an invite ?
hoym88 on May 11th, 2007 at 3:09 am - Permalink
Please, send me an Babelgum Invite. My mail: derdzik [at] gmail.com
b4it on May 13th, 2007 at 2:38 am - Permalink
Hi leute ich hätte auch gerne ein invite: guigo@gmx.at
Hi guys when you are so free to give me an invite i would be very pleased send at guigo@gmx.at
sepp on May 14th, 2007 at 2:42 pm - Permalink
would like to get an invatation.
thanks!
mios on May 15th, 2007 at 4:43 am - Permalink
My invite will be delivered to: :D
rrrinfo@gmail.com
Greetings from Russia
Sergey on May 18th, 2007 at 9:08 am - Permalink
can you send me a invitation of Babelgum？
rrrinfo@gmail.com
Thanks！
Sergey on May 18th, 2007 at 9:45 am - Permalink
Can You send me a babelgum invite, please?
Thanks!!!
chiarellistefano@hotmail.com
stefano on May 26th, 2007 at 12:10 am - Permalink
Can you send me a babelgum invite?
Thanks
dagavi.spam@gmail.com
dagavi on May 30th, 2007 at 4:56 am - Permalink
An invite to either would be much appreciated here in Australia.
Cheers
Steve Cook on May 30th, 2007 at 5:17 pm - Permalink
[...] For background, see our initial coverage: Hey Joost, Have Some Babelgum. [...]
NewTeeVee » Get a Babelgum Invite Today on June 6th, 2007 at 1:30 pm - Permalink
[...] if you are looking to do something this week, I suggest downloading the Babelgum beta. The company has opened up its public beta with a lottery system. To hell with that. If you read [...]
GigaOM 10000 Invites: Get Your Babelgum Beta Now « on June 8th, 2007 at 3:19 pm - Permalink
Babelgum looks interesting. We have been trying Joost for several months now. Looking forward to some compare and contrast articles.
Mustard Seed on June 8th, 2007 at 4:24 pm - Permalink
Please invite me too at kennedy_xex@hotmail.com
MILLION THANKS!
chemstudioweb on June 10th, 2007 at 8:42 am - Permalink
[...] Coverage 1. Babelgum opens up for all 2. Hey Joost, Have Some Babelgum 3. Get Your Babelgum Beta Now Sphere: Related Content Category: Internet TV [...]
Technology Untangled » Blog Archive » Babelgum is chewing on Internet TV on June 19th, 2007 at 4:58 am - Permalink