The Venice Project Launches In Private Beta

veniceproject_logo.jpgA beta version of The Venice Project launched today. It is the Internet TV start-up from Kazaa and Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis.

TechCrunch first got wind of the project in October.

“We set out to try to merge the best of TV and the best of the Internet and I think we have just taken a big step on a long journey,” said Friis today on his blog. “For a few months we have been quietly testing with a small circle of people. Now, we’re going to expand that circle – with more and more people getting invited. If you want to take it for a spin, get an invitation from an existing beta tester. The next months will bring many additional product features both on the end user and content provider side of things. And, importantly, more and more content. What you’ll see now is a preview of some of the categories of content you will find.”

GigaOm is reporting that early beta testers were not impressed, saying the site has a “bad interface, no text description of what the buttons mean, [and the] quality of video goes up and down very much.”