Watch Out YouTube, Global TV JOOST Got Better!

In the few months since Google paid $1.65 billion to acquire YouTube, both companies have tried to come up with a formula to turn the hugely popular online video site into a moneymaking venture.

Friday, YouTube announced a deal with the BBC, creating a channel for the British network's most popular shows. On Monday, it announced a similar deal with the National Basketball Association.

But at least one partner has expressed unhappiness with its YouTube deal. Last month, NBC, which promoted its fall lineup on the site, demanded that YouTube take down some unauthorized videos. And now more media companies are flirting with smaller YouTube competitors, such as Revver and iFilm. Last month Joost, signed a content deal with Viacom, which owns MTV and Comedy Central.

Without a deal with Viacom, YouTube is left without some of its most popular clips from Comedy Central's "South Park" and "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart." Viacom, which walked away from a YouTube deal last month, claims that traffic to its Web sites such as Comedycentral.com and MTV.com has increased since it put more video there, allowing visitors to embed clips on their own blogs or other Web sites.

The Joost team has a few things going for it, good lineage when it comes to getting traction with a new product (Kazaa, Skype); founders (Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom) with deep pockets and the ability to attract more; and the byproduct of those two—plenty of publicity/hype. (Joost is feeding the buzz with a time-proven gimmick: make the beta hard to get into and urge people to ask those already in the beta for a token to get access.) Their contention: they shouldn’t be grouped with the others because Joost is real TV for the web. If the player is half as good as Joost’s ability to get juice, they really could be on to something.

For now, it’s by invitation only, but by this summer it will be open to the public. You’ll download the free Joost software, then use it to watch channels ranging from Lime, a lifestyle station, to National Geographic. And potentially thousands more, from anywhere, in real time — and without the stuttervision that dogs streaming video today. It’s the creation of a team of 60 top engineers — veterans of Apple, Flickr and Firefox.

Joost says it’s about to announce a pact with JumpTV to carry some programming it has rights to from 270 stations in 70 countries; that deal will launch with prerecorded Spanish and Arabic programming. The goal eventually is to stream some of the stations live.

The Venice Project code-named no more

Joost™" to combine the best of TV and the best of the Web

New York/London - January 16, 2007 - Today, the company formerly known under the code name The Venice Project has revealed its official brand, "Joost™." Currently available in private beta testing, Joost combines the best of TV and the best of the Internet by offering viewers a unique, TV-like experience enhanced with the choice, control and flexibility of Web 2.0.

Co-founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, Joost fills a critical gap in the online video entertainment arena. Joost is powered by a secure, efficient, piracy-proof Internet platform that enables premium interactive video experiences while guaranteeing copyright protection for content owners and creators.

"People are looking for increased choice and flexibility in their TV experience, while the entertainment industry needs to retain control over their content," said Fredrik de Wahl, chief executive officer of Joost. "With Joost, we've married that consumer desire with the industry's interests."

Joost is the first global TV distribution platform, bringing together advertisers, content owners and viewers in an interactive, community-driven environment. Joost can be accessed with a broadband Internet connection and offers broadcast-quality content to viewers for free.

"We've received positive and constructive feedback from our early beta-testers and are now at a stage where we're ready to reveal our true brand," said de Wahl. "The Joost name has global appeal, embodies fun and energy, and will come to define the 'best of TV and the best of the Internet'".

About Joost™

Joost™ provides a new way of watching TV that combines the best of full-screen television entertainment with online interactive and community benefits to bring an unprecedented selection of video content to viewers anytime, anywhere. Joost is based on a state-of-the-art, secure, peer-to-peer streaming technology.

It's all about speed to buy, 'click to call' now available on eBay via Google

Overlapping services and partnerships apparently are part of Silicon Valley's effort to respond to tech-saavy shoppers who want service in a hurry.

In May, eBay announced a deal with the No. 2 Internet search engine, Yahoo Inc., to serve all its domestic advertising. Under a new partnership, Google would become the exclusive provider of text advertising on eBay outside the United States.

eBay plans to rely on Google's international presence to build a worldwide market for Skype, the Internet phone provider the company acquired last year.

The companies said they would use Skype and Google Talk, the search engine's instant messaging and voice-over-Internet telephone service, to build a search function that lets Web surfers launch Internet phone calls to eBay merchants or Google advertisers by clicking on ads.

Promoting "click-to-call" advertising was also part of the deal eBay announced with Yahoo in May.

Once "click-to-call" is established the next opportunity could be "Click-to-play video ads" for AdWords which appears to have had a slow start?