Video site Joost launched successfully but then had to severely scale back plans for growth due in part to the fact that the service’s bandwidth consumption caused problems for many people during beta testing. The company had been quiet for a little while but has now made the big announcement that they are switching away from their software-based model and towards a new web-based video-viewing experience similar to that offered by Hulu.

Some say that Joost’s ship has already sailed and that the new service won’t take off despite the fact that it’s moved to the model of Internet video viewing that people today seem to favor. One complaint is that some software is technically still required for the new Joost. A bigger issue is the fact that Hulu has been so successful in coming to dominate this industry and has agreements in place with content providers that allows for a big edge over Joost. To combat this latter issue, Joost is implementing a social networking aspect to the site to set itself apart from Hulu. The new site will open up to beta testing in a couple of weeks.