Joost to kill desktop client, provide browser-based video player?

Apparently a web browser really is the best place to watch online video. OK, that's probably not at all true. But thanks to YouTube, Hulu, and other Flash video based web sites, most users have gotten used to watching video without launching a separate application. So this week we saw Amazon de-emphasize the download feature of its online video store. Next up? It looks like Joost might end development of its standalone video player and launch a browser-based service instead.

The new Joost browser plugin will still reportedly rely on P2P technology to distribute video, thus lightening the bandwidth load for content providers. The video quality should also be higher than what you find on most YouTube-like video sites.

One of the things that made Joost different from every other online video platform when the service launched was the company's insistence on creating a standalone video browser. After all, web browsers are designed for navigating text and image-based web sites, not video. Joost was designed to be a bit more TV-like. But I can't say I'm surprised to hear that the company is moving back to the browser, because for many computer users, the web browser is the internet.

The image above does not show the new browser plugin. Nobody's seen that yet (except maybe the folks working on it). Rather it shows a Flash based mashup of a Joost-style interface for browsing existing online video sites.

Update: TechCrunch got some screenshots of the new service which is available at a password protected web site. Check one out after the break.

Tags: browser, flash, joost, online-video, p2p