Written by Jackson West
Posted Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 9:26 AM PT

 

Hey Joost, Have Some Babelgum (With Screenshots)

BabelgumJoost, 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. babelgum_01.jpg

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.

babelgum_02.jpgWhat 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.

babelgum_03.jpg 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.

Follow us on Twitter or subscribe to the feed

Sphere
Topic: Online Video

Comments (50)

Linkbacks (19)

  • […] to the “parasitic applications” camp is amazing.” No comments Share/Send Sphere Topic: Startups Tags:none […]

    GigaOM » Lets get some Bablegum — 10:25 AM on January 17, 2007

  • […] 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 »… — 12:26 PM on January 17, 2007

  • […] 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 |… — 2:16 PM on January 17, 2007

  • […] 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… — 8:04 PM on January 17, 2007

  • […] 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… — 6:18 AM on January 18, 2007

  • […] 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… — 5:17 PM on January 20, 2007

  • […] 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… — 1:31 PM on January 22, 2007

  • […] 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… — 10:47 AM on January 31, 2007

  • […] 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… — 3:52 AM on February 1, 2007

  • […] 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 — 9:17 AM on February 5, 2007

  • [...] 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 — 1:12 AM on March 1, 2007

  • [...] Otras opciones de Televisión P2P son Zattoo (incluyendo programas en directo) y Babelgum: [...]

    Televisión 2.0 « Pastillas de tecnolog… — 3:10 AM on April 9, 2007

  • [...] 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… — 1:13 PM on April 11, 2007

  • [...] TV: Joost and Babelgum are just a start. More like Zattoo are joining the [...]

    GigaOM » P2P, now for Pretty Much Everything — 11:45 PM on April 15, 2007

  • [...] For background, see our initial coverage: Hey Joost, Have Some Babelgum. [...]

    NewTeeVee » Get a Babelgum Invite Today — 1:30 PM on June 6, 2007

  • [...] 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… — 3:19 PM on June 8, 2007

  • [...] 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… — 4:58 AM on June 19, 2007

Subscribe to comments feed

Leave a Reply

Sign up for our daily email: