Boing Boing: Skype founders' internet TV project goes beta

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Skype founders' internet TV project goes beta

What is the Venice Project? Skype co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström built it with some of that $2.6 billion from selling Skype to eBay. Friis (who, by the way, is rather a babe) explains on his blog:

It’s simple, really — we are trying to bring together the best of TV with the best of the Internet. We think TV is one of the most powerful, engaging mass medias of all time. People love TV, but they also hate TV. They love the (sometimes…) amazing storytelling, the richness, the quality itself. But they hate the linearness, the lack of choice, the lack of basic things like being able to search. And wholly missing is everything that we are now accustomed to from the Internet: tagging, recommendations, choice, and so on… TV is 507 channels and nothing on and we want to help change that!

Link 1 (from October, when a private alphabetawhatever testing phase was live), Link 2 (from December, now that a larger beta has launched, with about 6,000 participants). Reuters item: Link. You can apply to participate in the beta here.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:27:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

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