Joost abandons consumer video market, waves "white label" flag

Most people think of Hulu when it comes to streaming free network TV shows over the Internet, but Joost was there first, beating Hulu to the punch by more than a year. But Joost never quite caught on, and the once-pioneering company now says it will give up on the consumer video market altogether.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Joost, which went into private beta in early 2007, opened to the public later that year, and even launched an iPhone app last December, has replaced its CEO, while Advertising Age says that the company has laid off about 70 of its 90 employees.

As of today, the Joost Web site is still online and streaming shows from networks such as CBS, MTV, and VH1, along with some music vidoes and movies, but I'm guessing the site will soon disappear as Joost gears up to become something new—a "white-label" video platform for other companies (including cable and satellite operators, as well as broadcasters and "video aggregators," as Joost puts it).

It's a sad twist for what was once one of the most exciting ventures on the Net, launched in 2006 by the creators of Kazaa and promising to bring free, streaming network TV shows to users via peer-to-peer technology—and years before we'd ever even heard of Hulu.

OK, so what went wrong? GigaOm ticks off a long list of problems, but the Wall Street Journal sums it up nicely when it notes that Joost—unlike YouTube, or eventually Hulu—required users to download a full-on (and initially Windows-only) desktop client.

That was a hurdle that many users were unwilling to clear, especially considering that sites like YouTube streamed video directly over any Flash-enabled Web browser.

Joost finally launched its own Web-based video site in October 2008, but by then, Hulu—which had launched earlier in the year, compete with full-length movies and TV shows from Fox and NBC—had already stolen much of Joost's thunder.

Joost was also first out of the gate with its own streaming iPhone video app, which arrived late last year, but it was already too little, too late.

Related:
Joost Names New CEO in Strategic Shift [Wall Street Journal]