Beware snakes bearing checkbooks

Given the opportunity to experience Joost on Monday morning at Banff, TV producers and broadcasters were unexpectedly met with the 20-foot image of a cobra, reports the Globe and Mail. The predator hit too close to home for traditional media representatives.

The cobra streamed live from a nature channel, which was chosen at random by Joost SVP Stacey Seltzer, whose job it was to demonstrate how the video site works at the Banff World Television Festival.

Joost, which is trying to avoid being seen as the metaphorical snake in the grass, attended the Banff TV festival prepared to make deals with producers like any other network. Seltzer explained they came to "meet with all the different kinds of providers and work on deals with them."

The Web TV solution is quietly thought to be a frontrunner in network television's losing battle to the Internet. Joost has already developed relationships with major players like CBS/Viacom among its 37 or so committed advertisers, despite its ongoing test mode state. At the festival, it also expressed a willingness to share the wealth with other content providers.

Observers note the move that ultimately brings Web TV into the mainstream eye will be the inclusion of top TV shows onto Joost.

Joost has not made any such relationships just yet.