I certainly don’t want to diss YouTube. But its “citizen journalism” approach is sort of like a scattergun. There’s a lot of great content there, and it undeniably is a major force in our culture, influencing politics, entertainment, and even legal proceedings. It allows almost anyone to be a star, if even for the proverbial fifteen minutes. On the downside, it’s often a breeding ground for would-be paparazzi and tabloid gossip. All in all, though, it’s the perfect medium for our short attention span society. Whether a broadcast genius emerges from YouTube doesn’t matter. That it provides a possible platform from which that genus may rise is what makes YouTube important.

At the other end of the spectrum are sites like Hulu, which was gobbled up by Universal (NBC) and News Corporation (FOX) by the time it uttered its first cry. As such, it’s already become a promotional wing of the two behemoths, mirroring the content of the two parent sites, right down to full episodes being viewed “with limited commercial interruptions.” What bothers me most about Hulu at this point is that it’s full of promise, but it’s mostly a tease. You get full episodes of shows like Heroes and Arrested Development, but only enough to whet your appetite—they’re in random context, supplanted by clips. There’s a very small library of full-length movies, but there again, the movie collection consists mostly of promo clips. Hulu has potential, but right now, it exists as a marketing tool for NBC and FOX.

Somewhere between the two extremes of corporate self-promotion and citizen journalism are sites like Joost, bridging the chasm between Old and New Media. As I mentioned in an earlier article, Joost is a commercial venture, and it has inked deals with CBS, Sony, and Warner (among others) for content. A major difference, though, is that Joost shows its content with “limited commercial interruptions.” Sure, you occasionally get a little pop-up ad in the corner of the screen, but that’s not nearly as annoying as full-fledged commercials. In fact, I’d say the content far outweighs the minor annoyances.

Since I last wrote about the site, not even a month ago, Joost has added some impressive content, certainly not the least of which is the entire series of David Lynch’s cult classic Twin Peaks. The bizarre murder mystery serial was nothing short of a national phenomenon in the very early nineties, and it’s still ahead of its time, nearly eighteen years after it was cancelled. If you’ve never seen it, you’ll find yourself addicted to it. If you remember it, you’ll remember why America wanted to know “Who Killed Laura Palmer?” Unlike other mysteries, where clues unravel the mystery, each episode of Twin Peaks complicated the mystery even more.