Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, together could be considered Internet’s biggest trouble makers. As co-founders of Kazaa they brought the wrath of the entire music establishment. With Skype they poked the telephone industry in the eye, before flipping it to eBay for billions. And now they are taking on the television business, with their new start-up, The Venice Project.
But the leopards are changing their spots, and are playing nice with the establishment. Infact, it was one of the main reasons Friis and Zennstrom settled their differences with the music industry and forked over $100 million. They have been building the Venice Project in a stealthy fashion, but are getting close to launch. GigaOM got a chance to chat with Janus yesterday, and here are excerpts from that interview.
Om Malik: What is The Venice Project?
Janus Friis: Television is the most powerful mass medium, and we are trying to do is marry the best of television with the best of internet. What people love about the television is the story telling. What people don’t like is television that is locked in linear time. We want to try and preserve the best bits of television, and discard bits people don’t care for.
People like the freedom of choice and like freedom from choice. For example, channels are good, because they define the content. Today, the channels are locked in legacy infrastructure, but on broadband the channels are not locked in time.
That’s what the Venice Project is doing. What we have done is created a streaming P2P platform for television. This is a platform, which is good for content owners, for advertisers and of course the viewers. Since there are no borders on the Internet, this is a global platform. Sometimes we think content owners have legal reasons to restrict content locally and the technology allows them to do that.
OM: When will you launch the service? What are the bandwidth requirements for The Venice Project? And how good of a quality will the streams have.
JF: Like Skype, The Venice Project is simple - you download and you get free television. There is nothing complicated and simple. Our software is already in beta, and we are doing some bug squashing right now. You can sign-up and we are inviting more people to our beta program. It is near television quality, and it needs about one megabit per second.
OM: Does the Venice Project use the same core underlying technologies that were used in Kazaa and Skype?
JF: Kazaa and Skype were based on a piece of technology called the “Global Index.” Skype basically built a communication layer on top of that. That technology has evolved since then, and the Venice Project, is built on that global index and we have developed a P2P video streaming layer on top of that core technology. (*)
OM: What is the business model for The Venice Project?
JF: We are building an ad-based system, and it is close to the television model. We will do revenue share with the content providers. With our system, people can be targeted with the right kind of ads. We are respecting the copyrights. We will reveal more details about the technology soon.
OM: Does this mean that you are spending less time on Skype?
JF: Niklas and I are entreprenuers at heart, and eBay understands that. I am still at Skype and I think that is where I spend most of my time. On The Venice Project we have tried to build a management team that will take care of things.
(*) Om’s Notes: The Global Index mentioned by Janus is actually Joltid Global Index Software that is owned by a company called Joltid Limited, in which Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis have an equity interest. The company was not part of the Skype-Ebay transaction.
18 comments so far
7:56 AM PT
“You can sign-up and we are inviting more people to our beta program.”
What’s the URL?
Any idea how it compares to this?: http://www.tapeitofftheinternet.com/
8:34 AM PT
This sounds really exciting and I wonder if “the venice project” will have an api that third party developers will be able to exploit? This is something we did with skype at verbdate and with broadcast the potential is vast since people want to control their media not be controlled by it! Looks like Janus and Nick are about to disrupt again! Rockit guys!
8:54 AM PT
Level3 is working on a Video/Content Distribution system to bypass Akami at the Edge and bring CONTENT to the Consumer in real time…how does this differ from what the Venice Project is doing???
skibare
8:58 AM PT
Venice Project Comes Out From Under Wraps…
The online video venture backed by Skype co-founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, known as the Venice Project, is coming out from under wraps and Business Week’s Steve Rosenbush got an exclusive look. One hundred people have been testing the…
11:28 AM PT
Dang, I would I have asked them if they can write a client that doesn’t eat 50% of my CPU like Skype.
1:20 PM PT
Found it: http://www.theveniceproject.com/
2:57 PM PT
The Venice Project: Television And The Internet Tie The Knot?…
The Venice Project: Will it be as big a hit as Skype?…
4:20 PM PT
If the Venice Project gives us something else to talk about other than “how will YouTube make money” and “who is going to buy YouTube” (and despite the fact these questions have now been asked a million times, there are still no answers)… then it will be worth it.
4:38 PM PT
ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
6:23 AM PT
First It Was Kazaa, Then It Was Skype,…
and now it’s the Venice Project: serial innovators Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom are preparing a new start-up that “combines the best things about television with the social power of the internet. [`…] They’re currently courting small and large…
7:26 AM PT
and NOW google reportedly buying YouTube.com for a Billion plus change???????
Skibare
HOW does this impact the Venice Project???
11:11 AM PT
The Venice Project: P2P Fernsehen…
“What we are trying to do is marry the best of television with the best of internet” ist ein Zitat aus einem Interview mit Janus Friis (Mitgründer von Skype) zum Projekt “The Venice Project”.
Auf die Frage was das Vorhaben hint…
12:33 PM PT
Sir, I have skype on my lab top. Have deposited $10.00 in my account and used some of it by calling Germany.My question is how can I use my account on my PC at home. Thanks
4:15 PM PT
Ok, what is The Next after Web 2.0 ?
If Web 2.0 is syndicating, sharing and taking the internet to its elementary pieces, then the Next is applying activates between the elements of Web 2.0.
If Content in Web 2.0 is an elementary piece, then the Next elementary piece is the relations per se, which are combined in the content, between such contents and which are linked by/via/to it.
Imagine peers having their private “knowledge base” on each of their machines. Imagine each of the peers employs each other’s machines, but contrary to grid computing or distributed computing, they do so in short pulses and in a developed reaction, in which each of the peers forms and not only performs the tasks, while earning and ranking the trust of the others.
If sharing in Web 2.0 is exercised by delivery of contents, then another scale of processing the information is opened up for such communities.
For more about this concept, please visit my site.
7:52 AM PT
Glad to see another heavey weight endorses this technology. I have been testing similar technology from another company tvunetworks.com. Its tvuplayer has been my lifesaver.
2:04 AM PT
The Venice Project: 507 channels and somethin’ on…
After playing a role in disrupting music distribution with file-sharing system Kazaa, and upsetting telecommunications with Voice-over-IP service Skype, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis have now set their sights on television. Their project is code-na…
7:46 PM PT
Can you invest in JOOST.
1:49 AM PT
[...] I’m working for a bit more than seven months now. The Venice Project There has been enough information released [...]
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