I was chatting with my friend ZuluZulu the other day about digital media (he’s a bit of an old school new media dude; you know the ones; they were programming CD-ROMS when I was still impressed by Word and survived the dotcom-crash) and got talking about Joost, the much-hyped, long-forgotten Future of TV. The application that was going to change the way we watched tv. Or content, I should say. 
Whatever happened to them, we wondered? And shouldn’t they be doing something with a browser (it was the day that Google released Chrome), incorporate their software into a more user-friendly website. 

Well, speak of the devil etc etc. Turns out that Joost is no longer focusing on letting you download a software application, but are integrating their p2p technology into a website and the browser, thus bringing it closer to the likes of YouTube.
It looks pretty nice and seems to focus a lot on community (something they’ve been talking about for ages), but there’s still the million dollar question. Or two. While ZuluZulu is worried the ISPs may get a bit iffy, my main issue is still content.
I talked to Joost more than 2 years ago about sourcing (more left-of-centre) content for them and while at the time they were very close to signing some big players, it must be going slower than they expected. Admittedly, they are getting deals with the CNNs and the Warners of this world and there’s some decent stuff in their catalogue, but we’re not yet seeing the top raters like The Wire or an international sports event. Which I think they may need to get that all-important ‘critical mass’.

Let’s see how much more money the owners want to throw at it. They have a lot (remember they sold Skype and Kazaa), but I hope it does well, because I always thought Joost was going to make a difference. 

More info and pictures at Techcrunch.