ENTERTAINMENT/TECH: Joost

WHAT: Joost is a way to watch television and movie programming online for free. Content is paid for through a neo-traditional, ad-based model.

WHY: Joost is cool. From the inventors of Kazaa and Skype, these Scandinavian dudes are focusing their attention on a way to deliver full-screen content to your screen in a way that actually works. Major content providers have already teamed up: Paramount, Warner Brothers, VH1, MTV, etc., etc... the list goes on. I watched a full-length feature film called CLOCKSTOPPERS a few Saturdays back, and enjoyed the experience. It was sponsored by Mountain Dew, and a little Mountain Dew logo appeared occasionally in the lower right-hand corner. There were two or three short commercial breaks. If you don't have time to watch the entire program at once, it'll resume where you left off when you re-start the program. It's even got SCOTT BAIO IS 45... AND SINGLE. Groundbreaking.

HOW: Instead of cramming all of the video information down one pipeline, Joost breaks it up, so that your computer actually participates in the network of Joost programming. Think peer-to-peer streaming. This makes for faster network connections and very few streaming interruptions, or lag. Programs are ad-sponsored, but not intrusive. Best of all, it's not pay-per-view, so you can watch for free.

For now, Joost is a Beta program. However, if you go to the site and sign up, they'll send you an email shortly thereafter with a link to download the program. If that doesn't work, let me know... Joost is a "invite your friends" program, much like Gmail was for a very long time - you can be invited to use it. I haven't tried it on a dial-up connection, but who uses dial-up anymore? Oh, yeah, my brother does...

www.joost.com