Joost said ready to rein in global ambitions, focus on U.S. market

Marley, Joost's "Vice President of Office Hamony." We're not kidding

(Credit: Joost)

Looks as if the rest of the world may have to wait a tad longer to experience the pleasure of "next-generation TV." The Sunday Times is reporting that Joost will ditch some of its more ambitious plans to focus on the U.S. market.

The article reports that "a major retrenchment" is in the offing. A Joost spokeswoman is quoted denying layoffs but allowing that "there are some situations where staff have been realigned to better fit our needs." (Bush should hire that person to spin our Iraq fiasco.)

Nice scoopage, if true, though hardly a shocker at this point. This most heavily hyped video start-up was founded by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstr?m ,the creators of Skype and Kazaa. But it has struggled to gain traction as a so-called YouTube killer. Joost was supposed to be the answer to online video piracy. The idea was to offer a platform which would give professional content creators access to a high-quality video platform and revenue from A-list advertisers.

Now that the initial buzz has faded, Joost faces new competition from the Hulu video venture from NBC Universal and News Corp. Check out this devastating piece in Portfolio.com chronicling just how rapidly "Joost went from superhero to life support."

Of course, this doesn't need to ring the death knell for Joost. Serving up video--including Internet TV--is going to happen. Broadband needs to get faster--a lot faster--while Joost and the other entrants need to improve the user experience. But we've seen this before. The question now is whether Mike Volpi, the seasoned executive brought in from Cisco Systems to provide professional management as CEO, can keep Joost in the game until the "ah ha moment" when the technology can catch up with the big idea.

[hardedge]

"(Bush should hire that person to spin our Iraq fiasco.)"

Charlie, I've always maintained that you're great when talking about computers and technology. In fact, almost as good as I am. However, when you start ad libbing through your arse like that you just look silly --in fact, worse than I ever do.

[expatincebu]

If you actually think Iraq is anything but a total disaster then you look far worse than silly. His comment, although off topic, was accurate, factual, and pertinent to our times.

[powersville21]

Agreed. The glib political sarcasm comes across as amateurish and petulant, like a college freshman activist. Sorry but that's the way I see it.

As for Joost, I think I registered for the beta but I never once actually logged onto the site. Didn't really see any reason to.

Joost is a neat idea, but the load times on computer and application startup really made it a pain to see if anything interesting was available. Unless the company releases a web player, it'll always be overshadowed by the much more convenient Hulu.

[charlie cooper]

ouch.

ah well, we're all entitled to our views.

[mrorie]

Especially when they're correct.

[Veriander]

Sure you're entitled to your political views, Charlie. And when you express them in a tech blog your readers are entitled to email CNET to ask for your termination.

[unknown unknown]

Joost needs to replace more content. I stopped using it because the same episodes of the shows I actually cared to watch stayed there for quiet awhile with no or very few new episodes added.

[JuggerNaut]

Joost needs to improve cross-platform compatibility or lose big against Hulu, which is very cross-platform friendly.

[matt_]

This isn't a scoop by the Times, NewTeevee reported on this over a week ago that 3 members of the marketing staff where let go from the London office and Advertising and Marketing is based in New York . Newteevee also reported that several staff members from Comcast Interactive had been employed by the company so there's your restructuring and strategy change hint .

[Veriander]

If you're as tired as I am of political sniping in tech articles and you feel that Charlie's snotty comment on the Iraq war is less than professional, I encourage you to send an email to CNET News senior editor at: [e-mail].

[kgsbca]

No, Charlie's comment was accurate and appropriate. There has been no accountability for anybody in government, and when a mistake as massive as the Iraq invasion and occupation has been made, if there is no dissent from the people of the country, then they are as guilty as the government.

It is common for writers to reference events and people outside the industry they are writing about, and using how the bush administration has constantly re-spun their justification for the war is far more valuable to society than making a glib comment about a celebrity's PR team trying to explain away bad behavior.

[unknown unknown]

@Veriander, notice the title "Coop's Corner", that pretty much screams op/ed. If don't like what he has to say stop reading his stuff. We still live semi free country after all.

[Veriander]

@unknown, you notice the blog is part of CNET News "Business Tech" not "Politics"?? I wonder how you apologists would feel if Charlie's comment was something negative about either Democratic Presidential candidate...