Joost has gotten more hype pre-launch than any start-up company I can remember, and here I am contributing to it. Officially Joost may have made its commercial launch announcement earlier this week, but isn’t actually be available to everyone yet. If you’re still looking for an invite, I too now have 999 available in my invite widget. So promise to visit my other blog on occasion, drop a line in comments, and I’ll send out as many invites as I can.

Along with the commercial launch, Joost has announced new content deals with Turner and Sony to bring CNN content, full-length shows like CSI and Beavis & Butthead (do we really need to relive the 90s?) and clips like Sports Illustrated Swimsuit videos among others to the Joost screen. Commercials also started showing up on Joost yesterday.

Joost’s pros and cons have been covered pretty extensively, and by and large Dave and I agree with everyone’s assessments: There’s not enough good content and the full-screen mode is irritating. (I don’t like the navigation in general, but I think that’s more of a style and personal preference issue.) Still, Joost is potentially introducing P2P video delivery to a whole new audience. I’m interested to see how it tests bandwidth capabilities and what the reactions of cable and telecom operators will be. Are we about to see significantly more service suspensions?

Earlier in the month I sat down with Mochila CEO Keith McAllister and got the 1-hour version of what it is Mochila does. As best as I can sum it up, the company offers a-la-carte, multiplatform syndication. Together those words make it sound thoroughly uninteresting, but actually Mochila brings an intriguing approach to the new media market… at least once you get your brain wrapped around the concept.

Here’s how it works. Anyone can become a buyer or seller of content by joining Mochila’s network. (Sellers are vetted to make sure they’re selling legit material and no naughty stuff.) If you’re buying, you can choose text, photos, audio or video, and either pay money to redistribute the content – online or offline – or syndicate it with advertising. If you’re selling, you can make your content available on whatever terms you like. Mochila has a handy licensing system that lets you customize everything from price to embargo times to the specific publishers you’re willing to do business with. (more…)

PC World reports that two Congressmen have submitted a bill called the Internet Radio Equality Act that could save Internet radio broadcasters, including Pandora, from going out of business. The bill is the follow-up to a petition started by the SaveNetRadio group.

Pandora’s founder:

Following our outreach to Pandora listeners, every congressional office was flooded with constituent phone calls, emails and faxes - literally hundreds of thousands in just 5 days! The entire fax system on the Hill was brought to a standstill. We had to hand deliver the faxes! Please take a moment to call your congress person to voice your support for this legislation and urge them to sponsor or support the bill. It’s very important the we keep pressure on the legislators to ensure that this bill is passed quickly.

Dave and I are having a disagreement about the plot twist in the season finale of Battlestar Galactica (I liked it; he didn’t). Fortunately, BSG now has something of a choose-your-own-adventure option. Fans are being encouraged to create their own BSG video clips online. The Sci Fi Channel site gives you visual effects, sounds and music clips to use in your own video masterpiece. You put the whole thing together and submit it by June 1^st for a chance to have your clip aired during an upcoming episode. (”Upcoming” means 2008, which is when BSG actually continues…)

Personally, I think the Sci Fi Channel should provide actual footage of the BSG actors for fans to use. Watermark them or make them low-resolution, but don’t make people rely on the bad acting of their friends.

No, it’s not a new Starbucks flavor. Mochila is a multimedia syndication service that just launched its video player and video content today. It’s an interesting business model and I got a full briefing on it from the CEO earlier in the week. Unfortunately, time has been running shorter than usual and I haven’t had a chance to do a write-up from that briefing. More info to come. In the meantime, check out the company site if you want to learn more.

Time Warner Cable quietly launched PhotoShowTV in Staten Island last week. I say quietly because it appears there was very little press coverage. Granted the service was already operating in Hawaii, but this is the first time PhotoShowTV has been available on the mainland, so to speak. And it’s a very cool service.

SimpleStar’s PhotoShow has been around for quite a while as a simple tool for creating photo slideshows with music, graphics and even some animations. (Comcast subscribers can download the Deluxe version on Comcast.net) The TV part comes in with the combination of PhotoShow and Time Warner’s VOD service. Staten Island TWC subscribers can now create PhotoShows online and then submit them for public viewing on a local VOD station. In other words, what you create in your living room can be watched on Grandma’s TV screen across town. (more…)

I’ve written before about my love for Pandora and about the Copyright Royalty Board’s (CRB) attempt to kill it and other Internet radio services. Now Pandora, as part of a coalition called SaveNetRadio, is fighting back.

The SaveNetRadio group (including listeners, artists, labels and webcasters) started a campaign yesterday with a petition to Congress protesting the CRB’s new licensing rate scheme. The goal is to bring attention to the issue now and then follow up by introducing a bill that would make the CRB’s recent decision to slap unfair royalty fees on Internet radio sites illegal.

With all of the things that have been done wrong in the music industry, Internet radio is one shining example of what’s been (generally) done right. Please help save Pandora! Sign the petition and pass on the URL: http://capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/issues/alert/?alertid=9631541