Skype to launch Web TV service.

Skype founders to offer web TV

The founders of Skype are close to launching a global broadband television service promising viewers, content owners and advertisers “the best of the internet with the best of TV”.

Kazaa and Skype team shift their attention to online video startup

Skype and Kazaa founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström are already working on their next venture, a startup that will showcase online videos featuring content from TV producers.

Mr. Friis told the Danish newspaper Børsen on Wednesday that they plan to offer TV programming to consumers with broadband Internet access, according to Reuters.

Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, who sold their online telephony business to Ebay for $2.6bn last year, have invested part of the proceeds in developing the service, which has the codename The Venice Project. It will offer “near high-definition”, programmes supported by advertising, with tools for users to personalise their channels or discuss programmes with others.

The project, code-named Venice, aims to offer more professional-quality content than YouTube’s panoply of user-generated video fare, but it still aims to be fairly open.

“This is a system where people with professional content can put it out,” said Mr. Friis. “And that can be anybody.”

The partners were successful with their last venture, Luxembourg-based VoIP provider Skype, which was sold to eBay for $2.6 billion (see eBay Buys Skype). While Kazaa has tangled with the record industry over its sharing of music files, the executives hope to keep their next venture lawsuit-free.

Mr Friis said peer-to-peer technology used by the service, which exploits networks of personal computers rather than central servers, would make it possible to serve “tens of millions of users” while overcoming content owners’ security concerns. Programmes would not require digital rights management protection, said Fredrik de Wahl, the project’s chief executive, because “the bits and bytes being collected on your computer are fragments of a stream”.

The service is expected to launch next year and is being tested by about 6,000 individuals, Mr Friis said. At present, it has attracted few big-name channels, and the company would not disclose its partners, but one person close to Warner Music confirmed it was using the service to create channels for some of its artists, including Paris Hilton.

Milestones and releases

September 2002: Skyper Limited received its founding investment from Draper Investment Company

April 2003: Skype.com and Skype.net domain names registered

August 2003: First public beta version released

June 2004: Beta release of version 0.98.0.28 with first support for SkypeOut. Credits by voucher only initially, then from website.

July 2004: Release of Version 1.0 for Windows.

October 2004: 1 million Skype users online simultaneously.

Mr Friis said he hoped to provide outlets for traditional broadcasters, independent producers who struggle to reach a global audience, national broadcasters wanting to reach expatriate audiences and entertainment companies looking for new ways to promote their acts.

Unlike YouTube or video-on-demand services, The Venice Project will offer conventionally programmed channels. YouTube and similar video sharing websites “are not TV”, Mr Friis said. “The best of TV is about high-quality and full-screen video, but it’s also about channels.”

Milestones and releases

January 2005: First stable version for Mac OS X.

February 2005: 2 million users online simultaneously.

March 2005: SkypeIn Public Beta starts. Skype reports 1 million SkypeOut users and 29 million registered users. 84 million software downloads and 5.98 billion talk minutes served. Central contact lists introduced with v1.2

April 2005: Downloaded more than 100 million times.

May 2005: 3 million online at once.

June 2005: Ten billion minutes of voice conversation served.

August 2005: Call forwarding introduced with 1.4 beta.

September 2005: SkypeOut banned in South China. eBay announces purchase of Skype (Sept 12).

October 2005: eBay completes purchase of Skype (Oct 14).

December 2005: videotelephony introduced in Skype-to-Skype calls with v2.0 beta.

The Venice Project will earn revenue from taking a cut of the advertising on its channels, with the amount varying according to whether the content owner sells the advertising or whether it is booked by The Venice Project’s own sales team.

“We’re offering something close to business models they already have,” Mr de Wahl said. “We can offer TV-size audiences on the internet.” The company, which has offices in Leiden in the Netherlands, London, New York and Toulouse, will offer incentives to users to provide information about themselves to help advertisers target relevant advertisements to them.

The service is capable of including a pay-per-view element but the service would not be showing pay-per-view films “for a long time”, Mr Friis said. “We are going to start with TV content such as documentaries, drama and music videos.”

Source

Skype Founders Look to Web TV

The goal of the Venice Project -- a new Web-based, peer-to-peer television technology designed by the founders of Skype -- is to "redefine the way people think about television." The Venice Project is not a traditional file-sharing application or a video-download service. Instead, it is a secure peer-to-peer streaming technology that allows content owners to bring TV-quality video to an online audience.

The founders of Internet-enabled calling service Skype are expected to launch a broadband -television service next year that will pair entertainment content with peer-to-peer technology. To create the new service, Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom used part of the money gained from selling Skype to eBay last year, according to a report in the Financial Times.

Milestones and releases

January 2006: Skype 2.0 released. Five million concurrent Skype users on line.

March 2006: A third party paper analyzing the security and methodology of Skype is presented at Black Hat Europe 2006.

April 2006: 100 million registered users.

May 2006: Skype 2.5 beta introduces Skypecast preview and SMS messaging. Skype users spoke for 6.9 billion minutes during the first quarter 2006. Skype now handles 7% of the world's long-distance minutes. Skype for Mac 1.4.0.49 is released, the first Universal build of Skype. First major "free minutes" offer with SkypeOut to US and Canadian landlines and mobile phones free until December 2006.

Friis noted in an interview with the newspaper that the company would offer peer-to-peer technology that would make it possible to deliver content to tens of millions of users -- and still protect copyright.

The service, currently named the Venice Project, should launch in early 2007, and is already being tested by about 6,000 users.

Welcome to Venice

Milestones and releases

June 2006 Skype 2.5 for Windows released. A Mac version with video, named Skype for Mac 1.5 Beta, is leaked on the Skype site before pulled shortly afterwards.

July 2006 Three new Skype toolbars for Web, email, and desktop applications, designed to let people initiate voice and video calls, and instant messages directly from computer applications such as Microsoft Outlook and Internet Explorer.Skype for Mac 1.5 beta is released officially and a preview version with Video is also released for Mac.

August 2006 Skype for Windows 2.6 early preview is released. Seven million concurrent users online.

The official Web site of the Venice Project notes that it is a new venture that combines the best elements of the TV experience with the most powerful Internet technologies in a way that will "redefine the way people think about television."

The service is not a traditional file-sharing application or a video-download service. Instead, it is a secure peer-to-peer streaming technology that allows content owners to bring TV-quality video to an online audience.

All content on the Venice platform will be provided by content owners directly, and will be protected with encryption to be in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the site sates. Users are invited to become beta testers through the site, located at theveniceproject.com.

The site also notes that much more information will be released in the coming weeks and months, although there are hints that content and advertising deals are in the works already.

Solid Ground

Milestones and releases

September 2006 Skype launches free SkypeOut calls from France to landlines in France.

October 2006 Skype 2.0 for Mac is released, the first full release of Skype with video for Macintosh.

November 2006 Eight million concurrent user online. Skype 3.0 beta for Windows is released.

December 2006 Skype 3.0 for Windows is released

The Skype cofounders are certainly familiar with creating disruptive technology, and might be able to do so again with the Web TV service, some Web commentators have posited. Before Skype was purchased by eBay, the company managed to go global with the technology, even sparking censorship in China when it became too popular there.

After the eBay acquisition, the company continued to create products to compete with traditional phone services and made key partnerships to broaden Skype's audience. If the founders can apply those same strategies to Web TV, they might be able to gain a significant foothold in the market.

Already, the Venice Project notes that it has a strong proof of concept now, and the next few months will bring more releases with robust streaming, a video decoder, and much more content.

Source

Skype to launch Web TV service.

Skype founders to offer web TV

Skype Founders Look to Web TV

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