A decade-long partnership between the co-founders of Skype yesterday blossomed in the shape of Joost– an online TV service to “deliver the perfect broadcast experience” without scheduling.
Similar to the Web-based VoIP service that the duo launched two years ago, Joost is free to use, and takes pride in being a simple application that can be instantly downloaded to a computer.
Unveiling their beta product, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis said Joost, formerly codenamed The Venice Project, was their reaction to “a critical gap in the online video entertainment arena.”
Just as free net telephony became their goal in the pioneering days of Skype, back in 2005, free TV today is an “equally attractive proposition,” Mr Friis said in a v-log last week.
Details of the nascent service suggest consumers will be free, at anytime, to tune into broadcast-quality content, similar to the programmes on-demand from Channel 4.
But in combining “the best of TV” with “the best of the Internet,” Joost incorporates more of a Web 2.0 feel, as consumers can set preferred channels, which are currently more like video playlists.
The service is not only a threat to established broadcasters making the jump to the Web, but also, it poses questions to the unrivalled dominance of YouTube, which hosts content of a lesser quality.
However the Skype founders hope that the success of the video-sharing website, which attracts over 100,000 new clips every day, is proof that now is the right time to focus on net-based video entertainment.
A similar message came yesterday from Fredrik de Wahl, the chief executive of Joost.
He said: “People are looking for increased choice and flexibility in their TV experience, while the entertainment industry needs to retain control over their content. With Joost, we've married that consumer desire with the industry's interests."
His comments refer to Joost’s heavy marketing as a “piracy-proof Internet platform that enables premium interactive video experiences, while guaranteeing copyright protection for content owners and creators.”
Warner Music and Endemol, the makers of Celebrity Big Brother, have agreed to provide content during the trial, with other major content providers and user-generated content expected to follow.
Meanwhile, Joost’s founders said that far from having anything to do with gondoliers, the previous codename of Joost – The ‘Venice’ Project - stems from the name of the conference room they used to brainstorm.
Writing on the Joost portal, they added most of the development work took only about 12 months thanks to some of the world's best engineers, Web gurus and media visionaries, striving toward the common goal of 'Goodbye Television, Hello Joost.'
Jan 24, 2007
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