The Internet video service Joost has attracted plenty of attention and subscribers in the short time it's been out. It's a promising application but, as we and many others have pointed out, it still needs some work. (That's why it's still in beta.) One of the drawbacks of a peer-to-peer application is that users need to download and re-install every new version or they can't use it -- and with frequent improvements being made to the software, Joost users have been doing a lot of downloading and re-installing. Flash developer Paul Yanez wondered if it would be possible to create a browser-based version of Joost that wouldn't have to be re-installed, and came up with the mashup demoed here, which duplicates the elegant Joost interface -- and incidentally fixes a few of the problems with the original -- but runs in the browser window.

Yanez says some of the advantages of his version, besides being able to run it from a browser, include open access to video sharing sites (compared with Joost's limited content selection), a webcam chat widget, and right-click functionality for the mouse button.