Do You Joost?

The company, founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (their pedigree is creating Skype and Kazaa before Joost), is beta testing a service that's a secure, piracy-proof, peer-to-peer networking architecture for bringing streaming TV combined with social networking capabilities to every PC.

Joost will let you do some very cool things like watch a show, rate it, or chat about it. You can share what you're watching with others. Communities will be built around the experience, and, of course, commercial ads will be highly targeted to individual profiles.

The two founders have earned their rock star credentials in the peer-to-peer world since both Skype and Kazaa rely on similar peer-to-peer distribution of information. Peer-to-peer networking is based on the premise that every computer on the network contributes to the workload without relying on a centralized server. Information is cached on all the computers of the network in tiny snippets and then called up and pasted together as needed. In Joost's case, this makes it fast to stream video—even if it's a large sized program. Wired recently ran an in-depth look at the technology.

Marty Lafferty, CEO of DCIA, a volunteer organization in the distributed computing industry, has been using the beta version of TVP, the Joost application, and in a recent missive to members he said he thinks that Joost is nothing short of amazing. He says, "The fact that you have access to any TV program you like (of course, we're talking about TV channels that have agreed to stream their content in the beta version of Joost) is simply amazing." Lafferty says the interface is great looking with a sort of see-through glass effect, and you can minimize the TV to keep right on doing your other computing chores while you watch.

Apply to be a part of the beta test at Joost's web site.