Viacom boost to Joost in deal after Google spat

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 21 February 2007 02:15

Opinion and Analysis

Global media giant Viacom has taken its fight with Google into its own hands by forging an alliance with Joost, the new online peer-to-peer video distribution brainchild of Kazaa and Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. But it's a risky strategy that may backfire.

After demanding that Google's video site YouTube remove 100,000 items of copyrighted Viacom content that had been posted to site, including many of its MTV clips, Viacom indicated that it would set up its online distribution channel.

Google has previously made it fairly obvious that it wants individual deals with the major content providers before it implements content filtering software such as the Audible Magic system being employed by News Corp's social networking site MySpace.

However, as pundits have pointed out, providing content to Joost, at this stage at least, is by no means a substitute to having content on YouTube one of the most popular websites in the world.

Unlike Joost and Skype, YouTube does not require users to download peer-to-peer file sharing software to enable them to view videos. In addition, while Zennstrom and Friis have proven to be very good at selling their products for billions, Ebay has yet to turn Skype into a commercial success to justify the US$2.6 billion it paid last year.

Meanwhile, YouTube is busily forging relationships with other content providers while Viacom goes its own way for the present. Time will tell whether file sharing with Joost will provide the boost that Viacom and others can use to overcome the global Internet brand that YouTube has become or whether the media giant comes crawling back to the negotiating table with its tail between its legs.