Looks like the final frame has been reached for Joost, the online video service originally started by Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis and then eventually sold to the Adconion Media Group: Adconion today announced that it would fold in and rebrand Joost Media into smartclip, a video advertising company that it bought in November 2011.
The company says it is making the move in order to better serve the U.S. market, where it is now launching services, and presumably believes that using one brand is stronger than using two.
→ Read More
Video distribution and monetization platform provider Joost, owned by Adconion Media Group since its assets were acquired in November 2009, is today announcing a global sales and technology partnership with online publishing powerhouse Demand Media.
Under the terms of the exclusive agreement, Demand Media will leverage Adconion’s video ad serving platform to deliver all premium video campaigns sold by the former’s sales force.
In addition, (15 sec) pre-roll inventory on Demand Media owned and operated websites, including eHow.com, Cracked.com, Mania.com and Airlines.net, will become part of the Joost Video Network (which claims a reach of 67 million unique viewers and some 500 million total streams per month as it is). → Read More
Joost’s former CEO Matt Zelesko is announcing a new role today at Inform Technologies, a company that helps media companies sort and tag content on their sites. Zelesko will be taking on the role of Chief Technology Officer, overseeing all technology development and operations for the company.
Prior to joining Inform, Zelesko was CEO of video aggregator Joost. The failed video venture was started by Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström and was eventually acquired by Adconion Media Group for an undisclosed sum. Though the video network has had a tumultuous past, the video network seems to be driving impressive amounts of traffic. Prior to joining Joost, Zelesko was VP of engineering for Comcast Interactive Media where he was responsible for the development and delivery of all CIM web properties, including the Comcast portal and Fancast. → Read More
Straight out of left field, the Joost Video Network has assumed the number 2 spot in comScore’s Video Metrix “Top 100 Properties”, second only to Google.
The Joost network, which is now operated by Adconion after the company’s acquisition of the ill-fated European startup’s assets back in November 2009, claims a reach of 67 million unique viewers on a monthly basis. → Read More
Joost, the failed video venture started by Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, was put out of its misery in November 2009 when Adconion Media Group decided to pick up the remains of the company for an undisclosed sum.
Today, the international audience and content network operator is launching a suite of online video advertising products and services, targeting agencies and brand marketers who might be interested in running in-banner and in-stream video advertising on the Joost Video Network.
Video destination site Joost.com, meanwhile, will remain up and running (gotta love that ‘beta’ tagged logo) and will be used as a portal to showcase and distribute branded entertainment content. → Read More
Editor’s note The following guest post was written by Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, founder and CEO of WatchMojo.
Yesterday’s final implosion of video site Veoh, which declared bankruptcy after burning through $70 million of venture capital, was a long time coming. A lot of so-called smart money went into Veoh: investors included Goldman Sachs, Time Warner, Intel’s venture arm, Spark Capital and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner. And it was hardly an isolated incident. Joost, another high-flying video startup launched by the founders of Skype, went through $45M in VC money before ending up in a fire sale. Who’s next? → Read More
So it’s the end of 2009 and an appropiate time to take stock. We’re not going to bore you with a long analysis of the year. Suffice it to say that funding for Europen startup tech companies remains tight. And when VCs are running out of LPs to go to, you really know it is. The VC model is still finding its feet in a market where exits are still not that clear. For many companies 2009 was a nightmare – especially the first half. But anecdotal evidence I’ve been picking up suggests that confidence in the European tech scene re-started tentatively after the summer. Hopefully, conversations that have been going on for the last few months will see the light of day in new announcements, launches and, I daresay, one or two exits in the new year. → Read More
Niklas Zennström, half of the infamous duo that started companies like Kazaa, Skype, Joost and Rdio, took the stage at the Le Web conference this afternoon to talk innovation in Europe and the lessons he’s learned as a European entrepreneur for the last 9 years.
Zennström said he found it encouraging to find that so many European entrepreneurs and startups are busy building innovative things in Europe too, and that conferences and Le Web are a great way to bring everyone together. → Read More
Adconion Media Group announced this morning that it has acquired certain key assets from Joost, the ill-fated online video service started by the infamous Kazaa and Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but it’s likely a firesale that isn’t bringing any returns to Joost’s investors.
Last June, Joost announced a change in its business strategy to focus on providing white-label video platforms, and Adconion says it plans to pursue this strategy. Notably, Adconion recently announced its first long-term licensing partnership as the exclusive display and video ad-serving solution for the Goldbach Media Group in Europe. → Read More
Yesterday, the already very public fight for Skype entered yet another round, with the publication of recent filings of a motion for preliminary injunction against former Joost CEO and Chairman Mike Volpi and Index Ventures – where the man currently works as a partner – asking that he refrain from using knowledge or confidential information he obtained while at Joost in current dealings with eBay/Skype.
There are loads of interesting nuggets in the documents, which are well worth a read if you’re as fascinated by the whole thing as we are. For instance, would you have guessed both Facebook and multiple members of the Apache Software Foundation played an interesting role in this particular part of the story? → Read More
The once immensely hyped and heavily-funded video company Joost continues its unceremonious journey to the deadpool.
TechCrunch Europe has learnt that the startup, famously co-founded by Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, put its UK subsidiary into liquidation at the beginning of this month. The reasons that are given are not all too surprising: the liquidator says the company has “failed to sustain a significant share of the internet video industry and was unable to address this effectively through a re-positioning of its services.”
We’ve also learnt that the office furniture of Joost UK Limited, registered in England and Wales with number 05821718, has apparently already found its way to another startup, namely Songkick (also based in London). → Read More
Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the two European entrepreneurs and angel investors who famously co-founded companies like Kazaa, Skype, Joost and JoltId, have played an instrumental role in setting up and funding a new music startup called Rdio, the NYTimes reported earlier this morning.
Little is known about the ‘secretive’ startup, and its website reveals nothing but the logo at this point. NYT reporter Brad Stone writes that the upstart boasts offices in both Los Angeles and San Francisco and that it’s going to offer a paid subscription-based music consumption and purchasing platform for both PCs and mobile phones, starting early next year. → Read More
The once immensely hyped and heavily-funded video company Joost continues its unceremonious journey to the deadpool.
TechCrunch Europe has learnt that the startup, famously co-founded by Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, put its UK subsidiary into liquidation at the beginning of this month. The reasons that are given are not all too surprising: the liquidator says the company has “failed to sustain a significant share of the internet video industry and was unable to address this effectively through a re-positioning of its services.”
We’ve also learnt that the office furniture of Joost UK Limited, registered in England and Wales with number 05821718, has apparently already found its way to another startup, namely Songkick (also based in London). → Read More
The Skype-eBay plot thickens. Joost and Joltid, both companies owned by Skype’s founders, have filed a lawsuit against former Joost chairman and CEO, Mike Volpi. The suit also names Index Ventures, the VC firm where Volpi is a partner. In a nutshell, the legal documents say that Volpi obtained confidential information in his role as CEO of Joost about how to circumvent Joltid’s IP. We’ve embedded the legal document that appears to have been filed this morning, below.
Earlier this week, Joltid, the Swedish firm owned by founders of Skype sued eBay and recent Skype buyer Silver Lake Partners and its partners in the buyout, Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board; accusing them of copyright violations. The twist: Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom also founded Joost and Volpi, Joost’s former chairman and CEO who left the imploding company in June to become a partner at Index Ventures, has been rumored to be a contender for Skype’s CEO positio → Read More
On the very same day that a certain search and Internet advertising giant based in Mountain View, California has made public its plans to soon bring to market an open-source operating system that it hopes will give Microsoft a run for its money when it comes to powering the netbooks of this world, a lone startup from Paris, France has raised millions in financing to do exactly the same thing. I’m talking about Jolicloud, Netvibes founder and former CEO Tariq Krim‘s new company, which has just raised $4.2 million in Series A funding from Atomico Ventures and Mangrove Capital Partners.
With the investment, Jolicloud not only gains capital from two of the most widely respected venture capital firms in Europe, Krim also wins two heavyweight entrepeneurs / investors on its board of directors as well as one experienced advisor. Atomico Ventures’ Niklas Zennström (of Kazaa, Skype and Joost fame) and Gilles Samoun (current fotopedia CEO) will both take seats on the startup’s board, and Michael Jackson – partner at Mangrove Capital Partners and former COO of Skype – will take up the role of advisor. → Read More
On the very same day that a certain search and Internet advertising giant based in Mountain View, California has made public its plans to soon bring to market an open-source operating system that it hopes will give Microsoft a run for its money when it comes to powering the netbooks of this world, a lone startup from Paris, France has raised millions in financing to do exactly the same thing. I’m talking about Jolicloud, Netvibes founder and former CEO Tariq Krim‘s new company, which has just raised $4.2 million in Series A funding from Atomico Ventures and Mangrove Capital Partners.
With the investment, Jolicloud not only gains capital from two of the most widely respected venture capital firms in Europe, Krim also wins two heavyweight entrepeneurs / investors on its board of directors as well as one experienced advisor. Atomico Ventures’ Niklas Zennström (of Kazaa, Skype and Joost fame) and Gilles Samoun (current fotopedia CEO) will both take seats on the startup’s board, and Michael Jackson – partner at Mangrove Capital Partners and former COO of Skype – will take up the role of advisor. → Read More
With the news surrounding the implosion of Joost and the startup’s move towards providing white label video platforms for companies, we thought it would be a good idea to check in with one of Joost’s new competitors. As we wrote in our post about Joost’s prospects as a white label video community provider, there is already plenty of competition, including Brightcove, Magnify, and Ooyala.
Brightcove is perhaps the best-known player in the space. But another one which has been relatively successful in creating interactive video sites for brands is Magnify.net. The video hosting and sharing platform, which launched in 2007, is rapidly growing its white label service and is expected to be cash-flow positive by the end of the year, according to co-founder Steve Rosenbaum. → Read More
It’s sad to see a company that we were all so excited about fade further into oblivion. Today Joost, one of the most anticipated startups in 2006/2007, is just an also ran in a sea of big online video sites like YouTube and Hulu. Today CEO Mike Volpi stepped down, the company is laying off most of staff, and refocusing the business to “white label online video platforms for media companies.”
Om has a good monday morning quarterback overview of why they failed, but to me it comes down to just a few things. They over funded ($45 million before they even launched) and they ignored the fact that users were quite willing to sacrifice quality in online video for the convenience of Flash in the browser. Joost waited until late last year to go all Flash – until then users had to use the downloadable Joost software and allow P2P streaming of shows. In the meantime there was no linking to Joost videos. YouTube and Hulu got all that social media and SEO juice that could have gone to Joost.
Founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who founded Skype and Kazaa, see the world in terms of P2P and downloadable clients. The joke about how everything looks like a nail if you’re a hammer is very true with Joost. But what worked with Kazaa and Skype a decade ago doesn’t work with online video in today’s world, obviously. → Read More
Don’t count out Joost just yet. We recently wrote it still has a heartbeat despite the fact they made the wrong bet years ago by underestimating the power of the web for watching videos. They finally switched to Flash late last year, giving up on P2P, and introduced some social networking features around the video viewing experience to battle established players like Hulu, TV.com and YouTube.
Now it’s taking a step beyond that by forming an alliance with Europe’s leading social networking service, Belgium-based Netlog, theoretically expanding its reach to 40 million people. The deal will allow Netlog’s audience to access Joost’s video library straight from its starting page, where they’ll be able to view, share and comment on 57,000+ music videos, TV shows, etc. Activity will be pushed to users’ news feed, a feature Netlog copied from Facebook like many other community services did after its enormous success became obvious. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
