KEY POINTS:
The rate at which Google brings out useful - and free - internet software could persuade you that it was the only online application act in town. This column, for instance, was written not with an expensive word processing program from Microsoft, or even the free open source equivalent.
It comes to you via Google Docs, word processing software that isn't resident on my computer, but which is accessed through Google's website, where the files created are stored. The beauty of it is you can work on your documents from any internet-connected computer, and let anyone you choose to access - and edit - them too. And it does spreadsheets.
So that's one of the many things Google is up to, and you can be sure it's putting the wind up Microsoft.
But there are other creative people writing internet-based applications as well. Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom are two such clever types. Friis, a Dane, and Zennstrom, who's from Sweden, are arguably even more creative than the Googlers. They have two internet software hits to their names and are in the process of refining their third.
Friis, a self-proclaimed "disruptive internet entrepreneur", and Zennstrom first made names for themselves with KaZaA, free music sharing software. Next came Skype, which lets users make free voice (and video) calls over the internet. Their newest venture is Joost, which turns a computer with broadband into a television set for the free viewing of dozens of channels.
The music and telecoms industries certainly felt the disruptive effects of Friis and Zennstrom's creativity. KaZaA wasn't the first music sharing software - that honour belongs to Napster - but when the recording industry began fighting back against the violation of copyright the software made so easy, KaZaA was in the legal firing line.
Telecommunications has been shaken up to at least the same extent by the Scandinavian pair. Skype, which they released in 2003, has bitten a sizeable chunk out of the national and international toll calling market. More than 200 million Skype users are clocking up tens of billions of minutes of calls a year.
Now television is about to get the same treatment. Joost has been available for people who want to try out the software for most of the year, and now reportedly has about 1 million users. The service is set to be formally launched by the end of the year, Zennstrom said at a press conference last month.
In its pre-launch form, Joost is already looking promising. The video is full-screen, full-motion; in other words, just the same as what comes out of your TV.
Picture quality is variable, however. At its best it's comparable to a TV, but mostly it's distinctly low-resolution. Somehow, though, as a pioneering use of the medium, it doesn't seem to matter.
That's partly due to the fascination of sifting through content that isn't otherwise available in this part of the world - none of it is recognisable New Zealand free-to-air fare.
There are numerous music video and lifestyle channels; comedy, documentaries and sport - including Indy car racing, ice hockey, soccer and boxing; several short film channels; and there's an independent feature-length movie channel. And there are ads, which is how the money is made.
Joost has distribution deals with Viacom, CBS and National Geographic, and coming up in the next month or two is CSI.
Whether that is available in New Zealand is another thing - there are regional programming differences based on copyright.
The thing all three Friis-Zennstrom ventures have in common is they are based on peer-to-peer technology. That means as a user of KaZaA, Skype or Joost, you're also acting as a node on the service's distribution network.
With Joost, broadband is essential. Only after moving from Xtra's "unconstrained" DSL service to another ISP selling ostensibly the same service, which in fact is twice as fast, was I able to connect.
Joost is still pretty raw, occasionally crashing and often too fuzzy to watch. And the content, while abundant, is hardly riveting. It's the service's interactivity - described to CBS News by Joost executive David Clark as transforming TV from a 2D to 3D viewing experience - that sets it apart.
You can watch what you want when you want, chat online with other viewers and search a catalogue for programmes related to one you're watching.
If its creators are true to form, they'll probably sell it once it's broken through to the mainstream, as they did with both KaZaA, and Skype (netting US$2.6 billion) from eBay).
To whom? Joost could give Microsoft, a past master at buying software companies and making their products its own, the online breakthrough it needs.
Equally, Google, for all its inventiveness, has shown it's not too proud to acquire others' clever products, last October shelling out US$1.65 billion for YouTube. Google Docs, meanwhile, entered this world as a web service called Writely.com, created by Upstartle, a tiny outfit Google bought in March last year.
It will be worth keeping an eye on Joost to see how - and where - it goes.
* Anthony Doesburg is an Auckland-based technology journalist.
