Kazaa Skype and now The Venice Project

Serial entrepreneurs Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis are at it again, this time with a venture for distributing TV and other video over the Net.

Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the entrepreneurs who created the pioneering Web applications Kazaa and Skype, are working on a new communications venture, BusinessWeek.com has learned. The pair plans to develop software for distributing TV shows and other forms of video over the Web, according to people familiar with the matter.

Working under the code name "The Venice Project," Zennstrom and Friis have assembled teams of top software developers in about a half-dozen cities around the world, including New York, London, and Venice. The teams are currently in negotiations with TV networks, although it's not clear whether any agreements have been reached. A formal announcement of the new venture could come as early as this fall.

The mortality rate for tech startups is high, but Zennstrom and Friis have defied the odds with a series of highly disruptive new businesses that have roiled the communications and media establishments (see BusinessWeek.com, 9/19/05, "Skype's 'Aha' Experience").

Source ZeroPaid