Whither Joost?

Joost, the online TV site developed by the creators of Skype, has been around for less than a year and it already seems as if it's time has passed. Last summer, when it debuted to an invite-only audience, passwords and invites were being auctioned off on eBay. It was the hottest thing. However, we now see that Joost has been limited by a drought of compelling programming and because the site requires users to download the video player.

Why do all that when you can go to Hulu and watch current, high-quality shows in a streaming format? No extra effort required. That's what online viewers want. It took online video so long to take off because users had so many technical issues - issues which often went beyond bandwidth. Raise your hand if you ever gave up after downloading a piece of software so you could watch some clip that a friend sent you. (Thank you. You made my case. Hands down.)

Give Joost credit. The site's innovative chat function allows fans of a show to interact. Plus, the site features the old GI Joe cartoon. Some of Joost's interactive functionalities have been picked up by Hulu, and it's doubtful Fox and NBC would have had the same foresight as the Joost guys. Ultimately, it always comes down to content and here, Joost just could not compete with Big Media. Joost doesn't have shows that are currently on the air, which is obviously a tremendous disadvantage. Even if it had been able to land cult hit Arrested Development, that would have been a big coup, but it was not to be.