The two file sharing internet entrepreneurs, Danish born Janus Friis and his Swedish partner, Niklas Zennström have finally released JOOST, the much hyped global IP TV streaming inititiative for the planet. Expectations are of an equivalent Skype order of magnitude of up to 100 million viewers in three years according to Friis this morning! Some going, and with a bit of luck, just might make it. Afer all there are 6 billion inhabitants on the planet indicating the market target for JOOST is about 1.6% of mankind, roughly the price of a skype-out call in cents.
There are of course many other contenders for the prize, but then this was also the case with music file sharing and voice over IP. The reality is that YouTube has already passed this target for social video networking, and with the unflinching performance capability of file sharing in the video environment for professional broadcasting, the Skype and Kasaa dynamic-duo may have launched the next big thing. They need it now that the bonus of $1.7 billion from eBay has dissapated into the sun. The question is how long will this continue before Microsoft follows in the footsteps of eBay and pays an extraordinary (over) price to join the JOOST party? After all that is what this is all about.
