January 2007: The name Joost is revealed. Americans pronounce it juiced. The Scandinavians say yost. A few thousand people try the service in private beta. Their verdict: It looks cool, but there's almost nothing worth watching on it.

June 2007: Volpi, who was on Skype's board, is hired as C.E.O. At tech-industry cocktail parties, people debate whether he's the next Eric Schmidt.

October 2007: Joost is available to anyone, but new high-quality video sites begin popping up like prairie dogs in the desert. Hulu is unveiled; it raises $100 million from private equity firm Providence Equity Partners. ABC serves up videos on ABC.com.

December 2007: Adobe releases Flash Player 9 Update 3, which makes it easier and cheaper to display high-quality, professional video in a browser. Hulu is all over it; Joost is not.

January 2008: Influential tech website NewTeeVee posts a blog entry titled "Five Ways to Save Joost."

We're in an Italian restaurant in Lower Manhattan, a few blocks from Joost's office. The waiter brings over a chalkboard listing the specials. "Let me fix your Italian," Volpi says, erasing a letter with his finger. He can speak Italian and Japanese; his English has a slight lilt.

After ordering, we make small talk for maybe a half-hour before I bring up Joost's disappointing performance thus far. "Some thought we would instantly be transformational," Volpi says. "Those who know how media work had other expectations. I think it will be transformational—just not in six months."

He compares internet TV today to cell phones 15 years ago. People then didn't realize that mobile phones weren't replacements for regular phones; they were a whole new way to talk. Likewise, Volpi says, Joost isn't meant to replace broadcast TV. It's not even meant to substitute for TiVo, or what Volpi calls catchup TV. Instead, Joost's goal is to deliver video that people otherwise would have no way of seeing, whether it's vintage episodes of Mannix, jazz videos, Turkish dancing, Asian table-tennis championships, or new programming like Robot Chicken. "Just doing TV on the internet won't work," he says. "We're aggregating lots of niches." Some of Joost's hottest shows right now are old Transformers cartoons. "If we do it right, it will be an extraordinarily large business."

Joost's way of delivering video is unique. The system is based on the peer-to-peer technology that Zennström and Friis developed for Skype. When you watch a show on Joost, it is being reassembled from millions of pieces that are coming from other Joost users scattered everywhere. In milliseconds, your computer puts the pieces in the right order and displays the video in the Joost player. Simultaneously, it forwards the pieces to other Joost users who want to see the same video.

Joost's most significant deal is with CBS. Users can see a dozen or so CBS shows, including C.S.I.: Miami and clips from David Letterman's monologues. The network isn't cranking out any new programming for Joost; it's all repurposed fare. Joost also has shows from Comedy Central, and the N.B.A. serves up week-old games. Joost's most popular channels include Sexy Clips and Motors & Babes. The typical Joost user is a 25-year-old male. "They're watching sports, comedy, and anything with girls in bikinis," Volpi says.