CBS and Viacom buy into Joost

Filed in archive Internet TV on May 11, 2007

Joost hand over the money

Since I am a beta participant in Joost's new P2P video service, I have known that the company is for real in terms of its technological prowess. And I have watched it try to build a business. However, yesterday it took another leap forward in that regard.


CBS and Viacom are both buying equity stakes in Joost. Joost made this announcement yesterday along with other investors: Index Ventures, a European venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital, and Li Ka-shing, chairman of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. and Cheung Kong Holdings. All told, Joost raised $45 million.

CBS had declined to join into the as-of-yet-unnamed venture with NBC and News Corp. Now we see how they expect to play Internet-based video distribution. In my opinion the direction to move to a Joost platform will eventually be vindicated as the smarter move.

Previously, CBS and Viacom were two of the more prominent media companies that made programming deals with Joost. Joost says it now has 150 channels of video.

The difference between Joost and most other video Internet players is that Joost uses peer-to-peer technology, which shares computing power and bandwidth. The more people that use Joost, the better quality the video will be.