Skype founders to launch broadband TV service

Skype founders to launch broadband TV service:

Skype founders to launch broadband TV service
The founders of Skype, the free internet phone service, have just announced their plan to launch a broadband television service early next year. Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, the entrepreneurs who were also behind the Kazaa file-sharing service, are said to have invested part of the money they made from the sale of Skype to eBay last year in developing the new project, which is still code-named The Venice Project.In an interview with the Financial Times, Friis claimed, “At the time we launched Skype, broadband capacity was extremely ripe for communication. Now three years later it’s the same thing for video: you can do TV over the internet in a really good way. TV is a huge medium – that’s something we’d like to be part of.”

At present, some 6000 users are said to be testing the service, which utilises IPTV technology, or Internet Protocol Television. While this term may still be unfamiliar to most users, it has attracted much attention from media and telecoms companies, as the use of IPTV on sites like YouTube and MySpace has proved successful.

In fact, 2006 has seen a mini-revolution in the online video and television experience since the world’s leading search engine, Google, bought YouTube for a staggering $1.65 bn earlier this year. It was announced last week that British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) would be teaming up with Google in the UK in order to provide their customer base with a range of products, including a user-generated video service. Furthermore, bigmouthmedia reported last week that four of the USA’s largest media companies were discussing the possibility of a joint venture to implement a video service as a rival to YouTube.

However, the broadband TV offered by the Skype team will be fundamentally different from the hugely popular YouTube service. While YouTube allows any of its users to upload videos onto the web, Skype’s TV service will offer professionally produced content, which will be uploaded by content owners and encrypted before being released. In fact, British television station Channel 4 is already reputed to be in talks to supply content for the project.

Friis further commented in the FT, “We’re also bringing something back from that old TV – of having a shared experience with your friends, something you can talk about, rally around and enjoy with others.”

The service is capable of displaying high quality and full-screen videos on a computer screen. Through the service, users must download software onto their PC or Mac, and can search through channels from a menu on the left hand side of their screen. Users will even be able to pause, rewind or fast-forward the video they are viewing, as well as being permitted to share video playlists with friends. What’s more, Skype users will be able to use their conference call facility to chat to others watching the same programme.

In the UK, it appears that The Venice Project’s main competitors will be the BBC’s planned catch-up TV service, and BT’s latest video-on-demand project. It remains to be seen, however, in which direction the entrance of Skype’s TV project will propel the online video and television experience. And as the stratospheric rise of YouTube proves, it will really lie with users to make or break this particular product – after all, Time didn’t name ‘you’ the person of the year for nothing.