Discovering International Movies With Jaman
December 29th, 2007
I just signed up for Jaman, a service that brings people access to movies from around the world, including Bollywood. The website attempts to build an online community around its large library of independent and international feature films and documentaries. Jaman was founded and is currently led by Gaurav Dhillon, the former CEO of Informatica Corporation - a company that provides data integration and delivery services. The name Jaman has been derived from the Hindi word Jamun, a tree and the purple plum fruit of the same name that it bears.
My first impression of Jaman’s website has been very favorable - it sports a polished, yet lean interface that is careful not to over-indulge in cliched Web 2.0 design elements. The movie catalog is easy to browse and is neatly categorized by genre, geographical regions, and ratings. Jaman also has a neat movie discovery feature that allows you to tune your preferences in order to find a movie to watch - complete with an ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ button, as made famous by Google.
Jaman is however, primarily a movie rental service that employs its own DRM and P2P network platform that enables users to rent and watch movies in high definition on their Mac OS X or Windows computers. While the site is free to browse, the Jaman player needs to be installed in order to watch licensed movie titles (which come in at $1.99 for a 7-day rental, or to purchase for $4.99). New users get three free ‘movie tickets’ when they sign up, which can be applied towards rentals. You also get two free tickets for every friend that you introduce to Jaman (so please do let me know in the comments if you intend to sign up after reading this, and I’ll email you an invite :P)
The Jaman team has also developed an unofficial AppleTV plugin that lets you stream content from your computer to the TV (if you own an AppleTV, of course). While the AppleTV has received a tepid response thus far, that scene has been predicted to change come January, once Apple announces their much-anticipated movie rental service via iTunes.
I previously mentioned that Jaman has built a social network around its media collection - this network enables users to get in touch with other movie buffs who may share common interests, fans, as well as filmmakers. People can also submit and share their original professional-quality content for distribution via this channel.
I have to mention Bollywood too - while Indian filmmakers and movie studios are waking up to the command that Internet audiences have in terms of bringing in revenue, Jaman is perhaps the first to offer audiences access to (a few) Bollywood movies on the Web. Zeroing in on the Bollywood section on Jaman, I see about 48 movies currently available - these range from the 70s (like Sharmilee) to contemporary releases (like Black and Paheli). Hopefully, this section will grow over time as more people start using the service.
Unlike other free and commercial offerings on the Internet for video consumption (such as Babelgum, Hulu, Joost, and a slew of others), Jaman is focused on providing a Web-based alternative to the Hollywood-dominated mainstream, and simultaneously improve the meager percentage of world cinema that is available to movie enthusiasts in the US.
I think I shall use my first free Jaman movie ticket to watch Inside Iraq: The Untold Stories, a film by citizen journalist Mike Shiley.
