• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, April 7, 2008

Is Web video company Joost floundering? The U.K.-based Sunday Times says yes, but the company's CEO insists all is well at the start-up.

The Timesreported that Joost has been "overshadowed" by the BBC's iPlayer and Hulu -- a joint venture of the newspaper's parent company News Corp. and NBC. But the article is short on hard facts to support its claim.

Joost CEO, Mike Volpi, meanwhile, denies the company is in trouble. "We are focusing on US, Western Europe, China and a few other Asian markets," Volpi tells Om Malik. He also tells Malik that Joost plans to announce a Web-based service soon.

Founded by peer-to-peer gurus Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis of Kazaa and Skype fame, Joost offers high-quality TV shows via the Web. When they announced the project, originally called The Venice Project, in late 2006, it was immediately hyped as the Next Big Thing.

But since that time, competition in the Web TV space has gotten much stiffer. Hulu.com is undoubtedly one major rival. The News Corp.-NBC company, which offers hundreds of free TV shows and movies, launched last month to mostly favorable reviews. Hulu, unlike Joost, is Web-based, requiring no additional downloads. In addition, Joost also must compete with older Web-based services like AOL's in2TV as well as the networks' own Web sites. Additionally, for users who want to download TV shows or movies, there's Amazon.com as well as Apple's iTunes.