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Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) is becoming more popular and a new company named Joost (pronounced juiced) will be hitting the market hard in 2007. Amsterdam entrepreneurs Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who co-founded Kazaa and Skype are behind the creation of Joost.

Joost, like Skype, requires users to download free software. In this case, the program will help them browse the Internet for channels and clips they're interested in, rather than make phone calls. Joost eventually will try to move onto television sets, but it will initially focus on making it easier and more fun to watch TV on a computer.

The service will be supported by ads, but advertising should be briefer and less frequent than on regular TV. Viewers will have a wider selection of TV programming and will be able to watch whenever they want.

Many telecoms hope to sell services streaming video onto television sets using the technology known as IPTV, or Internet Protocol TV.

Joost faces a lot of competition from many other companies. The Internet is becoming flooded with free online channels, file sharing programs like BitTorrent, and video download services such as Google Inc.'s YouTube.

There is also traditional television, and devices that piggyback off of it like VCRs, digital video recorders such as TiVo or more recently, gadgets like Slingbox that send TV shows elsewhere.

A video on the companies Web site said that ''Peer-to-peer technology is perfect for delivering broadcast in a very scalable way on the Internet.''

In other words, Joost's users will contribute some of their bandwidth to sharing video streams at the same time they download them for viewing, making it possible for the company to broadcast to a large audience from just a few computer servers distributed around the world.

The company is currently accepting applications for a limited number of people who want to try out the service, and said it intends to ''rapidly expand.'' It did not set a date for an official product launch.

If you are interested in the latest in IPTV check out Joost, download the free software and try it yourself. With the success of Kazaa and Skype, Joost will most likely be a big influence on bringing TV via the Internet to consumers around the world.

We will continue to research new advances in IPTV and traditional television so be sure to bookmark this page and check back for more information.