Whoops! Looks like the TechMeme snippet finder grabbed the advertising block rather than the more important headline/content block from this Washington Post article about Steve Ballmer and Yahoo!. Stupid computers!

Thanks to the GigaOM/NewTeeVee folks, I snagged myself a copy of Joost and started playing with it. First, for those who don’t know, Joost is basically TV over the internet. They’ve got a big peer-to-peer network setup (the guys behind Joost stared Kazaa), and your client lets you basically flip through channels and pick out shows to watch on demand.

It’s very much like the on demand video you might get through your cable company. Except the quality is crappier, the selection is crappier, and the delivery is crappier. Otherwise, it’s just like your local cable on demand.

That’s probably too harsh an assessment of Joost, which is very much in a beta/technology preview mode right now. They’re signing up new content providers on a near-weekly basis, so the content will likely get better very quickly. I just don’t imagine that I’ll ever have a major use for Joost, except as an occasional time-killer.

For example, if I’m at home, I’ve got a 46″ HDTV hooked up to Comcast cable and an HD DVR. If I’m lying on the couch, I can inevitably find something on the DVR or on live to watch, particularly if its in HD. If I’m really bored, I’ve got Netflix, as well as Comcast OnDemand (where I can stream HD movies, if so desired).

If I really can’t find anything to watch, I’ve got Netflix “Watch Now” which streams at better quality than Joost. And, for that matter, has a much better selection.

The other advantage all of these other mediums/models have over Joost? No commercials. Granted, I’m paying up front for them, but (unless I’m stealing someone’s wireless) I’m paying for the network connection that Joost is coming over too. If I really wanted to cut my bills, I could drop everything but Netflix, and probably still have more to watch, at higher quality, on my HDTV, than Joost can offer right now.

Putting another bullet into Joost is the fact that the major networks are offering a bunch of their shows online in pretty decent quality video, with minimal commercials. I’ve watched the entire runs of Raines and Andy Barker, P.I. on NBC.com. The quality is not noticeably different than Joost’s quality and it’s through a web browser, rather than a specialized client.

Now, I’d argue that Joost is dead today, but isn’t dead for the future. If they can beef up the network delivery to deliver even near DVD quality video, that’d be a nice step up. Taking it one step further, if they could make deals with the major content providers to deliver the shows I’m interested in, then you could even make the argument that it might start to encroach on cable’s on demand services. If they can deliver live (or near-live) sporting events, so that I could watch the Sox or Celtics from a hotel room far away, that would be probably the killer app for this technology. Or, if a show like Scrubs got cancelled, but lived on in a Joost delivery mechanism, that’d also go a long way towards helping Joost make it’s mark.

For now, Joost is a second rate on demand service, with a bit of a wonky interface and a crappy selection of content.

(I didn’t touch on some of the community type features that Joost offers because I don’t really care about them. Why would I want to chat with random people watching the same show? Rarely, for me at least, is TV an interactive endeavor.)

I’m into about day 4 of using Google Reader for my RSS feed reading. So far, so good. I’m getting through feeds much more quickly; I’ve even added a few more feeds because I’ve found it faster getting through feeds in the Reader interface.

Only a couple of flaws at this point:

1. If you keep the Reader open in a tab or browser window, it can seemingly get out of sync. I’ve had a couple of times when the reading window thinks the feeds are read, but the left column doesn’t, and moving back and forth results in things getting weirdly out of sync. I’m guessing it’s just a web-performance issue (as it’s doing a ton of HTTP/XML work everytime you read a bunch of feeds), but that’s something you don’t run into when you’re using a desktop client.
2. I miss being able to highlight/color code certain feeds or search terms. That’d be a nice feature, as right now, feeds aren’t differentiated particularly well when you scroll down.

Otherwise, I haven’t found a reason to move back to a desktop client yet. I’m rather impressed.

I went out after work a couple of nights this week. Good times.

Then I came home.

• 3 movies from Netflix.
• 13+ hours of new stuff to watch on the DVR/TiVo.
• 450+ items in my feed reader.
• 10+ hours of podcasts in iTunes.

I’m slowly working through it all. Thankfully, looks like the weather will cooperate and this will be a nice weekend to catch up on some TV and movies. I get weirdly stressed when this happens. But then I just browse through it, remind myself I’m not really missing out on anything, and I feel better about things. I lead a somewhat puzzling (lame, boring, ridiculously stupid) life.

My friend Greg has started posting again and running his movie on his website, Project Working Stiff. It’s a funny movie, more of a romantic comedy than you’d expect from the subject matter. It has a couple of literal laugh out loud moments, and some really great indie rock/pop music.

Go watch it. If you like it, post about it, or tell someone else to watch it.

Heck, I might setup a little spot on this here site for you to watch it (except it means I need to setup a Brightcove account, which I don’t have time to do right now … but stay tuned).