Joost was at one point cited as the next big thing, the future of Web television, the application that will take the industry in to the mainstream.

But not any longer. In fact, over the last few months, Joost has roundly criticised and had its aspirations kicked by lots of better placed competitors.

Hulu On Top

NBC’s Hulu has well and truly taken the mantle, offering Web based television viewing without the need for any software downloads, and offering a much more mainstream selection of programmes.

In January, I wrote a piece asking if Joost would actually last the year, as the doom merchants were out in force predicting an early demise for the service.

Maybe Joost have taken some of the criticisms levelled at them on board, as it now seems they are about to embark on a major restructuring of the company.

You may think the world already has enough Web TV applications to be going on with.

But the likes of Joost, Hulu, Vuze, Babelgum and more, now have a new competitor.

Blinkx already offer a video search engine, which enables users to browse their way through streaming videos from Google, YouTube, Metacafe and more.

Blinkx BBTV Launched

Now it has decided to try and compete in the already overcrowded online television sector, and today launched Blinkx BBTV (BroadBand TV) on to the masses.

The service offers the usual bells and whistles that you’d expect it to, with high quality video streaming, full screen viewing, and a choice of channels over many genres.

So far, so samey.

The last time we spoke about Joost here on Web TV Wire, it was to talk about its possible demise.

Many bloggers and industry analysts claimed at the time that it would be dead within a year.

I ended that article by concluding that Joost would probably be around beyond 2008, but for it to happen, some major changes would have to take place to the service.

And we could be in luck…

The growing popularity of Internet television isn’t good news for everyone, as businesses are finding to their cost, with falling productivity and rising bandwidth levels.

Sites such as YouTube are gaining users every day, while newly launched services such as Joost and Hulu are enabling people to watch television anywhere they want, including at their place of work.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Carriage Services Inc., a funeral-services company based in Houston, recently found out to their cost that 70% of its 125-person workforce watched videos on YouTube and MySpace for up to an hour a day.

Internet television is growing at a phenomenal rate, with services such as Joost, Hulu and Stage6 all providing more reasons than ever to turn to your PC or laptop rather than that square box sitting in your living room.

One of the biggest problems with watching television programmes, or movies online however, is the size of the screen you are being forced to watch it on. Unless you are rich, or an early adopter of future technologies, the chances are your PC or laptop screen just isn’t up to the job any more.

You do have an option though, and that is to hook your PC or laptop up to a projector, and have all your favourite video clips, and web episodes, in glorious full screen, home theater sized goodness. But, where’s the best place to begin?

Buying A Projector

First you’ll need a PC or laptop, and a home theater projector. There are plenty of places to find them, but I’d recommend reading through lots of projector reviews before you blindly purchase one which then doesn’t suit your needs.

Prices of projectors can vary wildly, but you’ll be looking to spend between $1,000 and $3,000 for reasonable quality and a good brand.

Be aware that there is a difference between a projector being HD Ready and actually outputting HD. HD Ready simply means it can accept a HD signal, but may output in standard definition so won’t look as crisp as you might expect.

If you want to make sure your new purchase is 100% HD then look at the output. An 800×600 output is not High Definition, whereas 1280×720 (720p) or 1920×1080 (1080i or 1080p) is.

Joost was due to be the next big thing, and created such a buzz in its infancy, was talked about positively all around the blogosphere and beyond.

Now, that seems to have all but ended, with the latest talk around the Internet being all negative, and even discussing the possibility of the company and service not being able to last until the end of the year.

The Trend For Knocking Joost

Mathew Ingram seems to have started the trend for knocking Joost, with an interesting post in the wake of the firing of the company’s chief technology officer Dirk-Willem van Gulik.

Gulik has now been hired by the BBC to directly work on their iPlayer, which recently racked up its millionth viewer despite reservations over the remaining inequality in the service. Joost’s loss is the BBC’s gain.

But whereas he was only asking questions of the direction the company is heading, and warning of its possible early demise, a number of other technology blogs and bloggers have been much more critical.

Joost has now officially launched to the public, moving from a Beta testing stage to one which makes the IPTV service available to everyone, at least in principle.

It has been more than 5 months since I first began testing the invite-only beta of Joost, which has since accumulated 250+ channels and 15,000+ television shows.

Although the Joost software has been updated now to version 1.0, the service makes sure to state that “Joost is still Beta software — there’s a lot more work to be done before we’re satisfied, and yes, you may find a bug or two.”

In the time that Joost has been in beta, it managed to go from promising to a poorly-planned disaster in my point of view. Now, Joost has received some cosmetic changes as well as a host of new features. Will this be enough to put Joost back ahead of the competition though?