I always say you can’t predict the future if you can’t envision it. I’ve always imaged that someday television programs won’t be shown, they will be posted. So you won’t have to record them, you will simply watch them when you get home. Socially, the key will be the first ones to watch them so you can talk about it with your friends.
Well those days are coming sooner than we think. A new product called Joost is currently being tested to allow users to share video. This is geared toward television and will offer DVD quality television for free. Allowing you to watch what you want – when you want.

So more hype from the Web 2.0 (I hate that term)? Remember when they shut down Napster and twenty more file sharing programs sprung up in its place? One of the most popular of these was Kazaa (who were sued and lost). These same guys went on to create another small piece of software Skype (which was sold to eBay for $2.6 million).

These same guys have come up with Joost. They hope to do to the television networks what Skype has done to the phone systems. You may not use Skype yourself but nightly there are 4 million users that do.

Of course the television execute aren’t happy but this time Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis (the Swedish inventors) are doing everything by the book – with DRM (Digital Rights Management) in place. Warner Bros is already on board. Its also been described as YouTube on acid!
I have signed up to be a beta tester so hopefully I can give you first some first hand information. Keep you eyes open for Joost and I will let you know more as I play with it.