Advanced Television

Joost UK liquidation, founders move on to music

October 16, 2009

The UK arm of online video company Joost has gone into liquidation. Joost UK, owned by Netherlands-based Joost Technologies, has appointed liquidators David Rubin & Partners LLP.

In July Joost CEO Mike Volpi quit the company and it announced it would focus on business-to-business white-labelling. At the time he blamed the self-publishing model taken by broadcasters for the downfall of the video-on-demand service.

Meanwhile, Joost founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, who also backed Skype and Kazaa, are moving on to music with a new subscription music service called Rdio.

Apparently the idea is seamless access for PCs and mobiles. It is not completely clear it will rely on the P2P Global Index Distribution that sat behind Kazaa, and Skype and didn't work that well for Joost. The system is currently at the centre of a complex intellectual property legal dispute between the pair and Ebay, the new owner of Skype, and Index Ventures the VC that is involved in buying Skype from Ebay and is now home to Mike Volpi.

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