Advertising, ad campaigns, ad agencies, and the people that make it happen

Internet television start-up Joost has a lot going for it as it approaches launch -- The reputations of co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, who’ve previously pissed off the music industry with Kazaa, and the telecom industry with Skype; a novel peer-to-peer architecture; an emphasis on copyright protection that has helped it land a bunch of major content deals; and a tremendous amount of publicity. But the most appealing thing about Joost, at least in the view of partners and investors, may be that it isn’t owned by Google or Apple. Among the investors are Silicon Valley VC giant Sequoia Capital, Europe's Index Ventures and the Li Ka Shing Foundation of Asia. The other two are entertainment companies, CBS and, notably, Viacom, which earlier tried to cut a deal with Google's YouTube, then gave up in a snit and filed a billion dollar law suit. They then proceeded to take their video business to ... Joost. Right now, things are looking bright for Joost, in spite of the fact that its service is still only available in beta, and even with a limited number of users, its performance has been questionable. Having said that, the odds are very much in favor of Joost becoming the 800 pound gorilla in the Internet television space.

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