Joost: Television and Online-Video Collide

Many years ago, I said the word “Google” to my wife. I said, “remember that name because it’s going to be big.” I’m having the same feeling about Joost.

I’ve been meaning to post on Joost since I read this article about the company in Wired magazine. The foudners created Kazaa and Skype, and announced Joost earlier this year. I’ve always believed in the power of “serial entrepreneurs,” and these guys are well connected and financed. They’re now up to 150 people and in 5 countres.

The idea is somewhat ground breaking… very much in the spirit of WillVideoforFood’s number one prediction for 2007.

Here’s a teaser from the Wired piece.

• Janus Friis, 30, is half of the most feared digital tag team since Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page marched across the Net…. Niklas Zennström, an amiable 40-year-old Swede, wears the suit.
• Together, the pair has spent the past six years bit-bombing the Net’s biggest and most vulnerable targets. Kazaa, their free file-sharing network, mushroomed amid the wreckage of the original Napster; it was managing 3 million downloads a month in 2001 when entertainment industry lawyers moved in.
• Next they built Skype, the free voice-over-IP telephone system, and sold it to eBay just over a year ago for $2.6 billion. That figure alone guarantees that their calls get returned.

You can check out Joost at its website, or visit the Joost blog.

Give it a test ride and comment if you’d like. And if you talk to Friis or Zennstrom, let them know that Nalts will pimp for equity.

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