Joost
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Joost was an Internet TV service founded in 2006 by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the creators of Skype and Kazaa. Codenamed 'The Venice Project', it distributed licensed TV shows and films from CBS, Viacom and Warner Bros. using peer-to-peer technology — later switching to a Flash web player — and raised about $45 million.
02 / Joost FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Joost bet on architectural over-engineering and mistimed the market: the P2P desktop model was heavy and hard to scale while YouTube, Netflix and Hulu raced ahead with simpler streaming, and a sustainable business model never materialized. After repeated restructurings and a pivot to white-label video technology, Zennström and Friis sold certain assets to ad network Adconion Media Group in 2009; the consumer service was suspended in 2012 and folded into Adconion's smartclip.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Asset restructuring
The company entered an asset restructuring.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Skype/Kazaa founders do P2PTV, licensed premium content
- 02
Heavy desktop app vs YouTube/Netflix's simpler streaming
- 03
No sustainable business model; repeated restructurings
- 04
Assets sold to Adconion 2009; service suspended 2012