Skype Founders Look to Web TV
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.
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
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
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…
