Founders of Kazaa, Skype Create Internet TV Project

The name and details of the latest venture for Skype and Kazaa co-founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis were released earlier last week. The young entrepreneurs have tackled the world of Internet television with a service called "Joost".

Zennstrom and Friis, who sold Skype for an incredible $2.6 billion USD to eBay Inc. in 2005, have said that Joost will combine aspects of file-sharing software and regular broadcast television. (Source: news.zdnet.com)

Joost (pronounced "juiced") may even eventually attempt a move onto television sets, but the two co-founders have remained adamant that their initial goal is to provide a service that makes it easier and more fun to watch television over the Internet.

In a similar manner to both Skype and Kazaa, users will be initially required to download free software. The program would then allow these individuals to browse the Internet for channels and clips of interest, rather than having to call an actual cable or satellite operator.

Joost is based out of Luxembourg, but also has offices all around America, England and the Netherlands that are affiliated with the service. Joost hopes to offer their services to larger international markets as the company continues to grow in popularity. (Source: news.zdnet.com)

Joost's biggest challenge will come from the competition it expects to face from a host of rival products and services. Joost representatives addressed these internal concerns within the company by standing beside the fact that with Zennstrom and Friis behind the project, Joost has to be considered a serious player within the online community. (Source: technology.canoe.ca)

The two succeeded under similar concerns when introducing Skype, and earlier built and sold the file-sharing program Kazaa amongst a greater degree of doubt for the success of the new product.

Joost has already been tested on a number of individuals who praise the service for its "ease of use, nice interface and intuitive design" among other new features. (Source: technology.canoe.ca)

The service will be ad-supported, but advertising will be less frequent than on regular TV. Viewers will also have a broader selection of programming and will be able to watch whatever and whenever they want.