'Venice Project’ Adds Video Partners
Skype Founders’ TV Startup Signs Content Providers
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 12/17/2006 7:00:00 PM
The Venice Project, the global startup aiming to “merge the best of TV with the best of the Internet,” last week quietly launched a wider beta version of its video-sharing service, in a prelude to an official launch expected in early 2007.
The Venetians also tipped their hand about what content will be available at first — clips range from pandas to punk rock — and some of the key features of the service.
According to a preview posted on its site last week, partners include Warner Music Group’s Atlantic Records; Havoc Television, a producer of music and action sports content; English-language Latino programmer VOY; and Ireland’s Wildlight Channel, which develops short-form movies and animation.
Representatives at Atlantic, Havoc, Wildwave and VOY confirmed that they’re participating in the beta version of The Venice Project. Another partner listed on The Venice Project’s site is Off the Fence, a Dutch TV distribution and production company with a library of 750 hours of nature, science and history documentaries.
| What’s on Venice? |
|---|
| Some of the content partners for The Venice Project include: |
| SOURCE: The Venice Project |
| Atlantic Records, a major music label. |
| Havoc Television, which produces sports, music and lifestyle videos aimed at young men. |
| VOY, producer of English-language Latino lifestyle and entertainment content. |
| Off the Fence, a Dutch producer of documentaries. |
HAVOC TARGETS MEN
Havoc Television president David deKadt said The Venice Project could be an interesting new distribution channel for the New York production company, whose video library includes punk music videos and skating clips aimed at young men.
“We’re excited about what they’re doing,” he said. “The demographic that will be attracted to their service should match up with our target audience.” Havoc today provides 20 hours of video-on-demand content to Comcast, Cox Communications, Insight Communications and other operators, and plans to launch its own broadband distribution site early next year.
The Venice Project — like Skype, or any number of online video sites — will be free for consumers to use, and will require the installation of proprietary software that manages video and handles playback. The company will offer content partners a split of advertising revenue and allow them to sell their own ads, according to programming executives who have met with The Venice Project.
The software features an on-screen program guide and a “My Channels” section, according to The Venice Project’s preview. Members will be able to rate videos with a five-star rating system and also chat with others who are watching the same video.
The startup is backed by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom. They’re the entrepreneurs who founded Skype, the free Internet phone company now owned by eBay. They also created the Kazaa file-swapping software, which was the target of a successful copyright-infringement lawsuit by music companies.
The duo think they can Skype-ify TV with the Venice venture. Here’s how Friis describes himself on his blog: “I am a disruptive internet entrepreneur. ;) You may have heard about Kazaa or Skype. The next one is Venice.”
BETTING ON BACKERS
Internet auctioneer eBay, which bought Skype for $2.6 billion last year, has given Friis and Zennstrom the OK to work on the TV project. The Venice Project’s backers “have some resources,” noted deKadt. “That’s another reason we’re working with them — I wouldn’t want to bet against them.”
The Venice Project declined a request for an interview. A spokeswoman said all information being made publicly available at this time is posted on the company’s Web site.
The service aims to offer full-screen video (at least, full screen on a standard PC display), with the goal of improving what people generally see on popular Internet video sites.
“On YouTube and Google Video, the quality is not great at all, but so far people haven’t cared,” said Eric Conley, CEO of Mixed Signals, which sells software to test video quality. “The question is, What will viewers ultimately demand as far as quality, and when?”
The Venice Project hasn’t disclosed specs about its video player. But in a post on the company’s site last week announcing the beta launch, CEO Fredrik de Wahl promised “the next months will bring successive releases with more robust streaming; a video decoder which stutters a lot less; way, way more content; increased interactivity; and a whole range of other features.”
For now the beta program is on an invitation-only basis, though de Wahl said in his post that “the main point of this release is to get the tires kicked by many thousands of people.”
PEER-TO-PEER PIPES
The Venice Project distributes video through peer-to-peer communication, in which network participants’ computers also act as relay servers — functioning, in a way, like a networked digital-video recorder. That architecture is supposed to provide a more cost-effective means of distributing video.
But a peer-to-peer network doesn’t mean zero infrastructure costs. The Venice Project network still needs data centers to “seed” content and otherwise manage all the clients that are connecting to each other.
One of the company’s managers explained in a Dec. 9 post on the site that “we are holding back somewhat” on expanding the beta program because “the fiber to Leiden” — a town in southern Holland — “is capped and our primary data center is not online yet.”
A similar peer-to-peer design is employed by BitTorrent. That file-sharing service allows anyone who’s running the software to share a digital file, which has resulted in many copyrighted works being made available on the service without permission. Like The Venice Project, though, the San Francisco firm is trying to play ball with content owners rather than defy them.
Last month, BitTorrent announced content-distribution pacts for movies and TV shows with major studios and cable networks, including MTV Networks, Comcast’s G4, 20th Century Fox and Starz Entertainment. BitTorrent plans to launch a content “marketplace” in February.
One difference between BitTorrent and The Venice Project is that in its current incarnation, BitTorrent’s software doesn’t provide an integrated video player or on-screen guide.
The Venice Project is incorporated as Baaima N.V., a company with a mailing address on the Caribbean island of Curaçao in the Netherlands Antilles. The company has said it has operations in New York and London, among other cities.
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