Joostâ„¢ is a new way of watching TV on the internet, which uses new and established technologies to provide the best of both the internet and TV worlds. We’re in the process of making it as TV-like as we can, with programmes, channels and adverts. You can also see some things that we think will enhance the TV experience: searching for programmes and channels, for example, as well as social features like chat. There are many more new features to come!

So far, things look great and seems like it will be even cooler as more channels/programming is added. I could go and on, but to be honest, I need to get back to watching my Joost! :)

Special thanks to Jeff “Zemote” O’Hara for hooking me up with a beta account. The day I get some tokens to pass out I’ll let you all know.

If you’re looking for a URL-shortening utility (you know, to “shrink up” those really nasty long-ass urls?), I highly suggest checking out http://turo.us

As I mentioned above, I had already owned the domain. At one point, I thought it would be cool to make some word out of the domain (adven.turo.us?), but that was getting too complex. Who knew that deep down, “turo” actually stood for “Teensy URL Redirect Output(ter)“? :)

If nothing else, play around with it and let me know what’s broke. I have some ideas for some features I may add down the road, so if it actually gets used it may get a bit more “functional”.

The biggest question that I’ve gotten from people regarding this has been, “Why?”. My answer is simply, “Why not! I had an hour of free time!”

I think between John’s passion for his kids and sports, this site is going to be awesome. He has a lot of great ideas and I am really interested to see how the site grows. If you currently coach your kid’s team or have ever given it a thought, I highly suggest checking coachKidsSports.com out. I hope to make “Coach of the Month” in about 4 years when Maggie is playing soccer (although, by that point, I’m sure that ESPN or Sports Illustrated will have bought the site out for a couple million). :)
I helped John with some ideas for his site and “forced” him into using WordPress. He is to blame for the strange post that I wrote a month back when I was wired on caffeine and couldn’t sleep after a night of brainstorming… :)

So now that I have given my “seal of approval”, you are still probably asking yourself “what is it?”

Basically, it’s a search service that goes out to practically every index that is searchable (we’re talking the Googles, Yahoos and even lesser known index/engines) and returns one big list of results. The key to it is all in how you actually search. Yes, you can navigate over to gada.be and plug in your search string in the box on the page, but you don’t have to. All you need to do is integrate the search string into the URL and it will be searched automatically across all of the indexes. You don’t have to go to a page, let it load, plug in your search query and submit.

http://mike-marusin.gada.be searches for the words mike AND marusin (together or separate)
http://mike.marusin.gada.be searches for the term “mike marusin”

So now I know you’re saying, “that’s kind of cool, but what else does it do?”
http://mike.marusin.gada.be/opml generates OPML of all of the results!

Very nice work, Chris and crew. I’m a fan…

Update: The site appears to be getting hammered. Be patient, it’s worth it…