There are loads of interesting nuggets in the documents, which are well worth a read if you’re as fascinated by the whole thing as we are. For instance, would you have guessed both Facebook and multiple members of the Apache Software Foundation played an interesting role in this particular part of the story?

To understand why, you need to understand what the lawsuit against Volpi, brought on by Joost and Skype’s initial founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, is actually about.

According to the two European entrepreneurs / enfants terribles, Volpi (pictured) has systematically breached his fiduciary duties at Joost to become the next Chairman of Skype if it were to be effectively sold to the new investor group that has agreed to acquire the company from current owner eBay.

This group also includes Volpi’s current employer Index Ventures by the way, which is being sued by the Skype founders separately.

The allegations span three core issues: the misappropriate use of confidential information gained at Joost in an effort to entice the buy-out group to join Index Investors in a play for Skype, a misuse of the same confidential information for plans to revamp Skype’s technology in the long run, and the attempts made by Volpi to lure key Joost engineers with knowledge of JoltId’s intellectual property (GI or Global Index, the peer-to-peer protocol technology developed and owned by Friis and Zennström) to the new Skype.

The third part is where Facebook comes in, albeit indirectly.

In July 2009, then-CEO of Joost Mike Volpi according to the court documents – which includes evidence in the form of e-mail communications and more – arranged a meeting between Index Ventures’ Danny Rimer and Joost Chief Architect Justin Erenkrantz (pictured) to offer him a potential job at the new Skype.

Erenkrantz was deemed one of the online video startup’s “most valued engineers” by the company’s founders in the case.

Just for your reference, Erenkrantz is an ex-Google engineer, current President of the Apache Software Foundation and former treasurer of the association.

In addition to Erenkrantz, Volpi allegedly undertook attempts to poach Sander Striker, Director of Engineering at Joost and also a member of the ASF.

The goal of the meeting with Erenkrantz, held at an industry conference, was to have him take a look at the current endeavors within eBay to develop a technology work-around for the P2P technology intellectually owned by JoltId and get his feedback, and to assess if he would be a good new member of the Skype diligence team (pending acquisition) and the new company’s technical team after the deal was done. Soon after, an official offer to Erenkrantz was made by Volpi.

The reason why that irked Friis and Zennström tremendously, the court docs show, was because they went to great lengths to retain Erenkrantz at Joost when Facebook – after Amazon – offered the man an engineering position at the social networking company, costing Joost a lot of money. They had managed to keep him from taking a job as software developer at Google after two internships there when they first hired him, and he was clearly a very valuable asset for the company.

Straight from the docs (also embedded below):

Although Volpi’s efforts to poach both of these Joost employees were equally unlawful, his overtures to Mr. Erenkrantz were particularly threatening. As Volpi was aware, Joost had recently expended significant effort and company resources to retain him – in the face of an offer for Mr. Erenkrantz to join Facebook.

As Joost founder Janus Friis write in a June 5, 2009 e-mail to Volpi: “I spoke to Justin Erenkrantz yesterday. Given the concerns about loosing [sic] him and the signficant ripple effects it could case,” Mr. Friis sought Volpi’s approval in paying him a substantial retention bonus, increasing his salary, and offering him a position as a part-time technical consultant for Joltid. Volpi concurred in these retention efforts, and having supported Joost’s bid to keep Mr. Erenkrantz from joining Facebook, nonethless attempted to lure Mr. Erenkrantz away from Joost a month later.

For what it’s worth: Friis and Zennström, who are still eager to buy back Skype themselves, seem to have Erenkrantz on their side in this matter. This is unsurprising, because he doubles as a consultant for Joltid at the moment, but it doesn’t bode well for Volpi in this case. In a declaration, Erenkrantz unambiguously supports the Skype founders’ motion for preliminary injunction (also embedded below).

Business, egos, lawsuits and emotions. It’s like watching Dallas!

PI Brief – PUBLIC –

Declaration of Justin Erenkrantz In Support of PI –

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Little is known about the ’secretive’ startup, and its website reveals nothing but the logo at this point. NYT reporter Brad Stone writes that the upstart boasts offices in both Los Angeles and San Francisco and that it’s going to offer a paid subscription-based music consumption and purchasing platform for both PCs and mobile phones, starting early next year.

Like other startups in this field (MOG, Spotify, Deezer and many others), the main challenge for Rdio will be to get the major players from the recording industry on board to supply music to its online catalog without fear of copyright infringement litigation. Needless to say, that’s a hard and expensive nut to crack, and any executive from the labels who hasn’t forgotten and/or forgiven Friis and Zennström for creating Kazaa will be wary before signing any type of agreement with Rdio. Nevertheless, Rdio CEO Drew Larner tells the NYT that talks with music labels are “continuing and confidential”, which an exec at EMI for one confirmed.

A quick Internet search appears to identify Larner as former director at Zoo Entertainment, and before that a Managing Director of Europlay Capital Advisors and Executive VP at Spyglass Entertainment Group. A search on LinkedIn only turns up Malthe Sigurdsson, a London-based designer who used to be creative director at Skype. Another interesting tidbit: they seem to own the domain name rd.io as well.

Friis and Zennström have been keeping busy starting lawsuits lately: first they sued Skype owner eBay over core technology used in the VoIP service that they own, then they filed a copyright suit against eBay and the investor group that is going to buy Skype from them, and then they went on to sue former Joost chairman and CEO Mike Volpi.

You have to wonder where they find the time to set up and back new startups in between.

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The Skype-eBay plot thickens. Joost and Joltid, both companies owned by Skype’s founders, have filed a lawsuit against former Joost chairman and CEO, Mike Volpi. The suit also names Index Ventures, the VC firm where Volpi is a partner. In a nutshell, the legal documents say that Volpi obtained confidential information in his role as CEO of Joost about how to circumvent Joltid’s IP. We’ve embedded the legal document that appears to have been filed this morning, below.

Earlier this week, Joltid, the Swedish firm owned by founders of Skype sued eBay and recent Skype buyer Silver Lake Partners and its partners in the buyout, Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board; accusing them of copyright violations. The twist: Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom also founded Joost and Volpi, Joost’s former chairman and CEO who left the imploding company in June to become a partner at Index Ventures, has been rumored to be a contender for Skype’s CEO position.

While Friis and Zennstrom named Volpi as a defendant in the earlier suit against eBay, it appears that the new suit against Volpi alleges leaking of trade secrets from Joost, breach of contract and “civil conspiracy.”

So what does this all mean? It’s a little complicated and slightly twisted. Yesterday, TechCrunch’s Robin Wauter’s reported that Skype is actively shopping around for companies that provide web-based communication services such as browser-based calling and video chats to add this functionality to the product. What the complaint basically implies is that at Joost, Volpi had access and knowledge of information regarding the ability for the peer-to-peer technology to go to the web. In his role at Joost, Volpi knew how it could be possible to make the switch to a web-based communication service within the source code. This source code is intellectual property owned by Joltid. The reason the bid from the consortium of bidders was so high, was because they all has knowledge (from Volpi and participant Index Ventures) that its possible for Skype to go web-based.

The complaint goes on to say that Google and Microsoft were considering buying Skype and were both aware of the ability for Skype to possibly add web-based functionality but didn’t want to touch it because of the complicated IP situation, since Joltid owns the code. All of that said, the complaint doesn’t have any affidavits or direct evidence that Volpi used this info in the bid to buy Skype.

eBay sold Skype in a deal valuing the peer-to-peer telephony service at $2.75 billion a few weeks ago, with the new investors owning approximately 65% of Skype, with eBay continuing to own 35%. Several months ago, Skype’s founders made their intentions public by announcing they wanted to buy Skype back from eBay. Shortly after this announcement, eBay announced that Skype was to be spun off as a separate company and then IPO.

From a press release issued by Joost/Joltid this morning:

The lawsuit alleges breach of fiduciary duty against Volpi, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty against Index, interference with prospective business advantage, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract against Index, breach of confidence, and civil conspiracy. The suit seeks an injunction requiring the defendants to return to the plaintiffs all documents and files containing confidential information that the lawsuit alleges was misappropriated from Joost, and enjoining the defendants from making any use of the alleged misappropriated trade secrets, among other things.

Update: More TechCrunch commentary on this story here.

Joost –

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With the news surrounding the implosion of Joost and the startup’s move towards providing white label video platforms for companies, we thought it would be a good idea to check in with one of Joost’s new competitors. As we wrote in our post about Joost’s prospects as a white label video community provider, there is already plenty of competition, including Brightcove, Magnify, and Ooyala.

Brightcove is perhaps the best-known player in the space. But another one which has been relatively successful in creating interactive video sites for brands is Magnify.net. The video hosting and sharing platform, which launched in 2007, is rapidly growing its white label service and is expected to be cash-flow positive by the end of the year, according to co-founder Steve Rosenbaum.

Magnify has recently partnered with several sites to power their video aggregation platforms, including deals with Etsy, CarsonDaly.TV, and Bicycling.com. Magnify has also created white label video channels for Zappos, New York Magazine and The Weather Channel.

Bicycling.com recently decided to shift from Magnify’s competitor Brightcove to power its platform for original content. The cycling site is launching its Magnify-powered site in conjunction with its coverage of the Tour de France, which starts July 4th. It was attracted by Magnify’s social features, such as the ability to pull UGC videos from sites like YouTube and updates from Twitter. Bicycling.com online editor David L’Heureux plans to integrate Twitter streams onto the platform from cycling all-stars like Lance Armstrong. Magnify also allows the online magazine to aggregate a mix of videos and makes it easy for the site to offer readers external videos and internal media that is created by Bicycling.com.

Additionally, Magnify is creating subject-driven channels, such as IranLive, that aggregates video content around a specific topic and also integrates live Twitter streams with the mentions of that topic. The IranLive Twitter stream has filters that remove any Tweets with derogatory or abusive language.

What does the Joost white-label service do again?

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Om has a good monday morning quarterback overview of why they failed, but to me it comes down to just a few things. They over funded ($45 million before they even launched) and they ignored the fact that users were quite willing to sacrifice quality in online video for the convenience of Flash in the browser. Joost waited until late last year to go all Flash – until then users had to use the downloadable Joost software and allow P2P streaming of shows. In the meantime there was no linking to Joost videos. YouTube and Hulu got all that social media and SEO juice that could have gone to Joost.

Founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who founded Skype and Kazaa, see the world in terms of P2P and downloadable clients. The joke about how everything looks like a nail if you’re a hammer is very true with Joost. But what worked with Kazaa and Skype a decade ago doesn’t work with online video in today’s world, obviously.

And this new business focus for Joost – white label video platforms – is a very tough market. Yahoo just bailed on it entirely after investing $160 million or so in an acquisition of Maven Networks last year. And competitors like Brightcove and Ooyala aren’t just going to roll over and let Joost take market share in this space.

Here’s what I learned from Joost’s failure – celebrity founders, celebrity CEOs and tons and tons of cash can be a recipe for disaster. Applying yesterday’s solutions to today’s problems isn’t an interesting business. And finally, knowing when to throw in the towel and just return what’s left of capital to investors is an important skill as well. That way everyone can move on and focus on real value add opportunities. There’s no room for Joost in the consumer online video space, and there’s almost certainly no room for them in white label video, either. Time to call it a learning experience and move on.

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Update: forgot to mention that you need an invite code to download the software for now. Fortunately, we get to give away no less than 15,000 for TechCrunch readers. Code: PUMP-TECHCRUNCH-USA-15000.

PUMP is a desktop application that lets you search for and download the Flash versions of videos from a variety of services, including YouTube, Dailymotion, BitTorrent search engine Mininova, Jamendo, LegalTorrents and Google Torrent, and the results are presented in orderly tabs. You can even opt to include any other search engine you think is missing from the list. Videos can be played in practically any format and shared from within the interface on a multitude of social networks like Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed. The app even doubles as a full-fledged Web browser and podcasting tool thanks to the ability to import RSS feeds into the system.

It makes for easy management and discovery of videos, but what I really dig about the service is that is able to sync and convert content from both your imported iTunes and local PUMP libraries to your iPhone, iPod Touch or other mobile phones. It’s also a full-fledged BitTorrent client, which is little surprising considering VIPeers is also the company behind torrent sharing client Podmailing. Of course, we would never suggest that you’d be using PUMP to download any copyrighted content or anything.

The downsides: only available for Windows Vista and XP for now (it also uses IE for browsing), an uninspired UI and a bit of a memory drain. But don’t let that spoil the fun.

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Now it’s taking a step beyond that by forming an alliance with Europe’s leading social networking service, Belgium-based Netlog, theoretically expanding its reach to 40 million people. The deal will allow Netlog’s audience to access Joost’s video library straight from its starting page, where they’ll be able to view, share and comment on 57,000+ music videos, TV shows, etc. Activity will be pushed to users’ news feeds, a feature Netlog copied from Facebook like many other community services did after its enormous success became obvious.

Earlier this year, Joost was added to the Boxee media directory, but I think this is a more significant partnership.

Netlog is growing fast, especially in Eastern Europe and the Middle-East, and it has famously replaced leading local social networks in many countries in Europe and Arabic speaking regions as community portal of choice thanks to its viral nature and extensive language translation program. Targeting mostly young people, it’s been actively looking to expand its array of entertainment services, most recently with the addition of multi-player games and now with videos from Joost. I think both will benefit from this and further anchor their position in Europe while everyone seems to be looking at what happens in the U.S and Asia.

Netlog raised €5 million from Index Ventures in April 2007. For the sake of comparison, Joost raised $45 million, coincidentally in part from the same investor, who we recently reported raised a new €350 million venture fund.

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Miro, an open-source HD video player we wrote about in 2007, launched Miro 2.0, an updated, re-designed, more powerful video player.

Several new features have been added to spruce up Miro, including faster performance and torrent downloads, the ability to stream shows from websites like Hulu and YouTube on the sidebar,and the ability to play videos in a separate video. Similar to the 1.0 version, Miro allows users to search for and download video podcasts from sources but Miro is offering a greater selection of video podcasts for users. Miro, a BitTorrent-enabled, Firefox-like open-source application was built by non-profit Participatory Culture Foundation and boasts of more than 4 million downloads in 2008.

Miro is in direct competition with video player Joost and lists all of its advantages over its rival here. Perhaps the recent make-over of Miro isn’t just an update of the application but also a move to keep up with the growth its competitor has seen in the past few months. Joost’s viewership recently picked up steam after the company moved away from the use of downloaded software to an all-browser video experience.

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A year ago the online video site was a ghost town. Then in September, when the company moved away from the use of downloaded software to an all-browser video experience, viewership spiked. Compete says they had 550k U.S. visitors in November 2008. Comscore gives an even more robust 1.4 million worldwide monthly visitors in November (a chart below compares Joost to Hulu). Google Trends also say things are going well for Joost, and points to strong traffic growth in Northern Europe.

If this data is accurate (at least the three services agree on dramatic growth), Hulu may have a competitor coming up from behind, even as they look ahead to YouTube.

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Joost’s two year old online video service was a pretty darned smart idea when it first launched.

Instead of streaming video through the Joost website, users would download a Mozilla-based client and watch it there instead. The user experience could be more tightly controlled. And more importantly, the Joost client had built in person-to-person file sharing. That meant Joost had lower bandwidth bills. It also meant that Joost didn’t need to worry about overloading servers while showing live events – users would just grab the stream from others automatically.

But Joost bet wrong, as the whole world, led by YouTube and then Hulu, got comfortable with Flash as the delivery method for video. Showing video on Flash meant users could deep link to specific videos, and also embed stuff they liked on their own sites. With the benefit of hindsight it all seems sort of obvious.

Joost adapted, though, giving users the option of an all-Flash site in September. Some international users would still be required to use the software to reduce bandwidth costs, and the company was hoping U.S. users would eventually install it, too.

Today they announced they’re discontinuing the software application altogether, but they aren’t saying why. It’s clear that Joost’s strategy has been fluid over the last few months as they try to figure out a way to compete with the much more successful Hulu. It’s honestly not clear that they really can. Joost doesn’t offer anything particularly unique or compelling to users over competing sites with proprietary content (Hulu with Fox and NBC, TV.com with CBS).

Joost raised a big $45 million round of financing way back in 2006. It’s not clear how much of that is left. If they want to succeed they’re going to have to do something pretty radical.

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I’m sure it’s a temporary issue, but the application just doesn’t work yet. I tried to play multiple videos, including the full length version of Men In Black, but an error message reads “The connection to the server was lost. This may be because of poor network quality. Please try again later.” Meanwhile, YouTube videos are playing promptly.

Still, when the app settles down and works properly, it will be a nice addition to the iPhone. Lots of great shows to watch while wiling away the hours on a plane. At least until the battery runs out.

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We’ve received a couple of anonymous tips that DirectTV, a $24 billion satellite TV provider, may be entering the online TV wars with a new site called DirectTV Web On Demand. The site would compete with startups like Hulu, Joost, Fancast, Sling.com, etc.

We don’t know much about the service, or even if it’s real. One of the tipsters says they’ve worked on the project and supplied us with the mockup screen shot above, which could quite possibly be real. On the other hand, we’ve spoken with industry insiders and they say they’ve heard nothing about the project.

The screen shot shows Heroes, which is an NBC show. The only way for Fox and NBC shows to be syndicated on the web is via a deal with Hulu. For CBS shows, they have to go through the CBS Audience Network.

That means it’s either very, very early in the development process or it doesn’t exist at all. We have an email in to DirectTV for comment.

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Without much fanfare, Joost has finally turned on the browser version of its Web video service, as we noted it would last month. The new site is all based on Flash, and lets you watch old Bruce Lee flicks, Sci-Fi movies like The Fifth Element, and clips from Barely Political and Comedy Central.

The Flash site comes almost exactly a year after I wrote a post pointing out that Joost’s peer-to-peer software approach would not work and that it would have to switch over to Flash-based video, just like every other Web video service. People don’t want to have to launch a new piece of software to watch video on their computers. They want to watch it in their browsers (so they can quickly surf to another page when they realize how much the video they are watching sucks—or, if it doesn’t suck, quickly switch tabs when the boss walks by their desk).

It took Joost a year, but it has finally realized that the Web is where it’s at. Now all it has to do is compete with Hulu, YouTube, Veoh, DailyMotion, and the hundred other video sites out there.

Joost is all advertising-supported, and there are social elements like an activity stream showing you what all your friends are watching. Which is great, except that it assumes your friends are watching Joost. They aren’t.

(Hat tip to Gubatron).

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So what happens when Joost ditches the download, goes all browser and launches a social network around their content?

Hulu can do that. No problem.

Tonight, via a 1 am press release, Hulu launches: show recommendations, user discussion forums for programs and specific episodes, enhanced search and better queue management. They also launched seventeen topical channels, including Anime, Fashion and Beauty, Food and Leisure, Home and Garden, Comedy, Music, Video Games, etc. The company say they now have nearly 900 TV and film titles from over 100 content providers.

And while I still think Joost’s Hot/LOL/Puke/WOW/WTF call out feature is just awesome, Hulu has the Daily Show. So they win.

Of course, the real battle, at least with regard to pure volume, is with the unbeatable YouTube, which has nearly 50 times Hulu’s 100+ million monthly video streams according to Nielsen Online.

Click here to watch a recent video interview with Hulu CTO Eric Feng.

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There are lots of new community features in the new Joost, which we outlined in our previous post. Joost isn’t just moving to a browser format. They’re also creating a video based social network complete with Facebook-style activity streams that shows you friends what content you are watching, commenting on and “shouting.” See the video below:

Next Month: Joost Goes 100% Browser, No Plugin

Joost is also listening to feedback. Next month, says CEO Mike Volpi, Joost will offer a version of the service that doesn’t require any download at all. The new version, called Joost Standard, will have the same social features as the plugin version and will give access to all on-demand programming. The plugin version of the service will give users access to high definition programming and live-broadcast shows. Some international markets will require the use of the plugin to offset high bandwidth costs.

Both versions are free. Most users will likely just download the plugin over time, but this is a great way to introduce the service to more users without any friction.

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Joost isn’t just moving to a browser format. They’re also creating a video based social network complete with Facebook-style activity streams that shows you friends what content you are watching, commenting on and “shouting” (see last screen shot above).

The new site, which is password protected, is at new.joost.com. We’ve obtained screen shots of the service, below. We’ve also created a video which will be up shortly.

Update: Here’s a video demo of the new Joost

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Joost, battling for relevance in the online tv world against Hulu and others, will soon no longer require users to download separate desktop software to access the service (its existing software is based on Xul). Instead users will be able to access Joost via a small browser plugin that will continue to use Joost’s P2P technology to distribute video among users quickly.

The service launched to considerable fanfare but has fallen off the radar as of late as the company has been plagued by a shortage of content and, well, users. And as the inertia of the online video business moves away from desktop clients and to the Web, it seems Joost has finally seen the writing on the wall and will launch an online video service of its own.

It’ll be interesting to see how it fares in an already crowded lineup of offerings headlined by Hulu, Amazon, and Fancast.

Update: Screenshots here.

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Joost

According to the Sunday Times, Joost has struggled to convince media and sports companies to sell it global rights, which are usually offered on a country by country basis. The Times reports that Joost still has money in the bank and “Joost is unlikely to close, however. “There are too many egos involved,” said one former employee.” Joost denied that staff would be retrenched, saying only that “There are some situations where staff have been re-aligned to better fit our needs.”

Erick wrote in October that the clock is ticking for Joost:

There’s a time bomb out there with Joost’s name on it. Full-screen, broadcast-quality video streams—the main selling point of Joost’s peer-to-peer Internet TV client software—is quickly coming to the Web….the vast majority of that video is not exclusive to Joost. All the Internet TV services are lining up the same content. And better-quality video is not going to remain a differentiator for long.

…Joost’s P2P approach is not a benefit to the consumer as much as it is a benefit to Joost (because it offloads the bandwidth costs of the most popular video streams to the users themselves). But streaming video on the Web is about to get a whole lot cheaper—and as Web video advertising takes off, a whole lot more lucrative. Some people argue that once the economics kick in, centralized Web streaming will offer a better, more consistent viewing experience than P2P streaming.

Set up by Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, Joost offered much promise, but has failed to deliver anything unique at a time when online video became the hottest vertical on the web. The restructure cant hurt, but with ongoing intense competition, Joost may well be on borrowed time.

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Under the deal, OurStage will offer four channels on Joost: Best of OurStage Shorts, Best of OurStage Comedy, OurStage Music Videos and OurStage Artist Access. The channels will give Joost users access to 10 OurStage Artists on each channel and exclusive content including music festival coverage & advice from established musicians & filmmakers.

OurStage launched in March 2007 and lets users rank and buy Inide songs and video. Artists upload their content, which users then judge – two snippets are heard/ watched and the user votes for which one he or she likes the best. The result are constantly updated in to top lists of songs. The top songs overall or by category are then listed on the site, and prizes are given to the top artists each month.

See our November 2007 review of their iPhone offering here.

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Version 1.0 of the open-source video player Miro was released earlier today. The non-profit company behind Miro has billed its new product not only as a Joost competitor but a purer one at that.

You can check out all of Miro’s perceived advantages here, but to sum them up: Miro is open-sourced, DRM-free, friendly to all content creators, connected to all the popular video sharing sites like YouTube and blip.tv, high definition, full of content, and BitTorrent-enabled. Joost, on the other hand, is proprietary, exclusive towards content creators, DRM-protected, closed to video sharing sites, lacking in content, lower quality, and entirely streaming video.

I’ve tried both Miro and Joost, and I like them both but for different reasons. Miro functions more like iTunes and is a good way to download batches of interesting videos from the internet regardless of whether they are professionally-produced or user-generated. Content must be downloaded via HTTP or BitTorrent, not streamed (although Miro can convert streams into downloads from sites like YouTube, blip.tv, and DailyMotion). You can download particular shows or just tell it to give you videos from particular categories (comedy, news, technology, etc.). Since videos must be downloaded, playback is not instant; but the videos load pretty quickly so it’s not a huge drawback.

Joost, at least on the surface, is better for viewing professionally-produced content instantly. Since Miro claims to match Joost’s number of commercial channels, however, this may be due simply to how Joost focuses exclusively on professionally-produced content. When you use Miro, you must wade through content not produced by major media outlets to find regular TV shows. And then when you find them, you’ll have to wait until many videos load via BitTorrent. Download speeds will then vary depending on how many people have the seeded the BitTorrent videos.

Miro will soon be available for co-branding so that content creators can create their own versions of the player with pre-configured channels filled with their own content.

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Tonight they’ve announced a very cool new feature to the service – instant messaging, via Meebo. Integration for now is via Joost widgets. Over time the feature will likely transitioned into a more direct integration.

Joost is starting to play the numbers game, claiming 15,000 shows and 250 channels. Depth is great and all, but what users really want to see is the good stuff. That’s where Hulu, despite its faults, has a big stronghold. Joost needs to have the compelling content, not just the long tail.

Screen shot below:

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Skinkers will use the funding to further develop and enhance their Live Notification Platform technology and bring to market LiveStation, their live P2P television platform.

Skinners LiveStation product is built on Microsoft’s Silverlight platform and offers a multi-channel live TV platform that will provide existing TV channels both for free and on a paid basis; think cable TV, but on a computer. Competitors include Zattoo, that already offers an existing P2P live platform that provides limited access within Europe. See our previous Zattoo review here.

The P2P live television market competes directly with on-demand providers such as Joost. See our review of Live P2P TV companies here.

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