Bram Cohen, high priest of peer-to-peer content distribution, slams Joost for its dated approach. The new online video service, brainchild of the founders of Skype, is organized around channels; that, says Joost's critic, is "an old media way of doing things." Cohen, the web ultra who designed the Bittorrent protocol for sharing files, is absolutely right. Joost looks like a humble distributor, merely relaying the channels of content owners. And that is its genius. Joost looks just like a harmless cable operator to the big media companies, such as Viacom, which are suing more adventurous web video projects. The programming makers know exactly how this works: they pay per user for advertising supported channels which they're trying to get off the ground; and charge the distributor for must-have offerings such as ESPN. By sticking to the program grid, Joost sacrifices a little user experience, but it compensates with a well-judged proposition to content owners.

Contact information for this author is not available.