Joost to Release Alpha Version of a "Widget API"

Broadband video service provider, Joost, says that it will shortly release an alpha version of a "Widget API" for developers interested in building widgets for its Flash-based player. In a posting on its Joost Labs site, Tuesday, the company embedded a demo of a widget that uses the underlying video's metadata to search Twitter for tweets on topics related to the video and that then displays those tweets on top of the video. "Technically," Joost explains, "widgets are separate SWF files that are loaded by the Joost Player and displayed on top of the video. The Joost Player then exposes a simple API to the widgets--video metadata: title, description, duration, etc.; current time in the video, meaning that time-based interaction is possible; ability to play/pause videos." This, the company says, "means that anything you can do in Flash, you can do in a widget, plus you can access information about the underlying video." Joost's demo video of a Twitter widget can be seen at: http://labs.joost.com/blog/?p=73