Joost has finally unveiled its official site for the China people. A bit surprise that the domain of Joost’s Chinese version is not carry any Joost or Tom’s letter (Joost partnered with Tom.com in developing and marketing the Joost Chinese site), but a new domain name called My100Fun.com. The general thinking is that a lot of startups that come to China building a sister site likely to use another domain name for the site, with number included in the domain name. An example is a startup mulu100, owned by edgeio.com, a classified advertising platform that shut down last year.

My100Fun inherited the same home page design as Joost, featuring some of the most popular English shows on the landing page. However, not that many Chinese shows can be found on this site. if we consider this My100Fun will help Joost to open the China market, it only showed that it is not completely ready yet.

By the way, you also can find the Joost advertisement (as shown in the below) on Tom’s Skype Web site.

via [cnBeta]

Joost began its Asian expansion by include the content from i-amtv, after serving up the content from Beauty TV recently. i-amtv, stands for Independent Asian Music Television, with offices in Malaysia and Ireland was the first music channel in Asia. A bold move for Joost and the content included from i-amtv will be available in both on-demand service or as a continuous channel for the Joost users. On i-amtv, users can find artists that feature songs from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, China, Singapore and Indonesia. Initially, only pop, rock, punk, grunge and hip-hop are available, but later Joost will include interviews, concerts, documentaries and user-generated content related to Asian indie music from this Asian music broadcast provider.

“We are planning a full suite of interactive features such as gig listings, social networking tools and band info widgets. As the channel evolves, we intend to push the boundaries of what’s possible on Joost,” said Genervie Kam, i-amtv head of music, according to The Star Online from Malaysia.

Joost has received a lot of buzz lately. Joost, which was founded by Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, will include the contents from Beauty TV, a beauty TV network dedicated to the beauty enthusiasts, according to this press release. The contents served to the audience will be focused on beauty tips, hair, skin, nails, cosmetic surgery, spas, health, fitness, insider interviews, beauty news, product reviews and trends. This is an area that might attract some specific demographic segments such as women, or young ladies markets that could well position Joost as the Internet’s killer application for the future. Prior to this, Joost has making headlines around the world by signed deals with some high-profile content providers that include CBS, CNN, Turner Broadcasting, Warner Brothers, Sony and Viacom.

Beauty TV was founded in 2006 but launched recently in January this year. It has teamed up with United Global Media Group for the marketing purposes. There is more information on Beauty TV on their “About” page.

I just came across a post of the official Joost that entitled,”Joost beta for Mac Intel is here,” this post is discussed the latest development of Joost team. I still very much like to observe the progress of Joost nowadays, maybe my sense is that it will be a big name in Internet this year. I personally feel that Joost did not encountered any serious problem as other new startups would faced in the launching status, they have the ability to get the timely users’ feedbacks. Moreover, they have gained the necessary branding power to attract a huge group of subscribers when they officially launched in the market in the future.

I will report back on this firm when it officially launched, stay tuned.

I previously have posted a post on The Venice Project. The Skype founders have officially renamed The Venice Project to Joost. It is not surprise for me that the founders of Skype, i.e. Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, the duo that brought the world Skype and Kazaa, have chosen a name that is also 5-letter words for their new online-video start-up. According to an article from the cnet, they chose Joost because they like the ring of it. However, some blogs I read are all wondering why they have changed its original name from theveniceproject to Joost. These people are worried that the name changed would affected the goodwill that the venice project built for the past months. My own view is: When I looked back all the three companies the duo built for the past years, they tend to used the “5-letter words” as their new venture’s name. I’m thinking whether they tend to believed that 5-letter words does bring their new venture the luck factor. In today’s world, I know it’s childish and absolutely ridiculous to make a comment on this, but it’s still no harm if they selected a shorter name as the final name for their dot com startup and since most of the well-established players such as Sun, Google, HP, MSN, Ask, just to name a few, they all have a short name. And I wonder the luck factor really take a major role on a new startup when there’s so much uncertainty in the market right now.

Simply put, I really like their idea. I wish them good luck.

Update: I put a screenshot below that I found on the Joost Web page. I think it will well illustrate the feature-rich of Joost.

Source: http://static.joost.com/screenshots/J_08blog_Nettwerk_overlay.jpg