Joost Pulls Plug on P2P Service

Written by Steve Donohue

Thursday, December 18. 2008 at 05:05 PM EST Post a comment

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Two months after launching a Flash-based online video service, Joost plans to pull the plug on its peer-to-peer based product.

When Joost flipped the switch on its P2P service in May 2007, the company -- backed by Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis -- had several blue-chip advertisers lined up, including Coca-Cola, Nike, and Intel. But Joost lacked the high-quality network TV programming that rival Hulu LLC debuted with a year later. Even today, the top program marketed on the Joost homepage is the original Star Trek series.

Although Joost offers Web surfers a library of 8,000 hours of video content, including shows from CBS, MTV, Comedy Central, Sony Pictures Television, and Warner Bros., its traffic is dwarfed by newer rival Hulu.

Fueled by The Office, The Family Guy, and other hit series from owners NBC and Fox, Hulu has rocketed to the sixth-most popular online video property on the Web, trailing only YouTube Inc./Google, Fox Interactive Media, Yahoo, Viacom, and Microsoft. Hulu videos generated 235.1 million views in October, according to the ComScore Video Metrix.

Joost didn't generate enough traffic to make the rankings.

Joost is ranked as the 5,860th most popular Website worldwide, according to Alexa.com. It is dwarfed by Hulu, ranked 306, and YouTube, which is ranked third.

Although Joost has a long way to go to catch up to Hulu and other rivals, it's way too early to dismiss a competitive threat from the company, backed by the deep pockets of Zennstrom and Friis, who sold Skype to eBay Inc. for $2.6 billion in 2005.

With its new Flash-based streaming video platform, Joost is looking to differentiate itself by integrating social networking tools with its programming, encouraging users to share content with their friends. The company is teaming up with several third-party platforms to expand its reach, including Digg, Delicious, and Meebo.

Joost is also expanding into mobile video, launching an application earlier this month for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch devices that allows users to access Joost’s library of 46,000 videos.

And while Hulu continues to rely on hit prime time shows to drive traffic, Joost is turning more to niche programming, recently adding 10 new content partners that are supplying it with titles ranging from the edgy Cheaters to Farmers’ Almanac TV.