With browser-based viewing and live sports, don’t count Joost out just yet

Much of the buzz for online video has gone to Hulu as of late following its public launch (our coverage). However, a new tidbit that was published in April’s Portfolio magazine suggests it may be too soon to completely write-off the online video site that everyone was buzzing about this time last year, Joost.

You see, buried in the magazine’s profile of the company and its chief executive Mike Volpi are the following two sentences (uncovered by CNET):

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This year, viewers will be able to watch Joost videos in a browser window. Go to Joost’s website, click on shows like Seth Green’s edgy Robot Chicken or an old Rocky and Bullwinkle episode and you can watch them as easily as you’d watch a video on YouTube.

Joost, it seems, is listening and willing to change its model to adapt. Many (including us) have noted that while Joost is doing quite a few interesting and innovative things in the online video realm, the fact that it requires a seperate application cripples it in a world of YouTube and now Hulu.

Joost is not stopping there. The company also plans a major push into live programming — beginning this week with the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. CBS is already seeing huge March Madness online numbers just a few days into the tournament so it’s probably not unreasonable to think that Joost is as well.

The company plans to also use this live broadcast ability so that fans in different time zones can watch the sports they love them in real-time. Chicago Cubs fans from around the country and European soccer fans in the United States are given as two examples.