BEIJING – Internet video firm Joost, started by the founders of Skype, is today launching a venture in China.

          It has teamed up with the Hong Kong-based TOM Group and will bow a jointly branded service joost.tom.com with 16,000 hours of content. This is licensed from local creators including CCTV, China Record Corp, BTV Media, CAV Warner Home Entertainment and Huayi Brothers Media Group, according to news agency reports.

"Joost has always been a global service, and our partnership with TOM is a perfect example of the regionalized offerings we are able to bring to the market," Joost CEO Mike Volpi said in a statement.

According to sources Tom will sell advertising for the localized version of Joost, while Joost will provide the underlying technology.

Launch comes months after China ordered dozens of Web video services to halt in March. However, by June, Chinese authorities had issued licenses to 247 companies, including Tom Online.

          TOM Group is majority controlled by Li Ka-shing, the billionaire shipping to telecoms mogul who is one of the most politically connected businessmen in the region.

          Through different companies and trusts Li also has a stake in Joost and social networking site Facebook.

          The regulatory crackdown earlier this year was sparked by fears of violent, pornographic and pirated material, according to a government statement in February.

          Joost was launched in 2007 by Kazaa and Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom and promoted a licensed content model, different to the approach that has seen YouTube clash with Viacom.

© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Comments (3)

Bright Shadow Films: movie production service http://www.brightshadowfilms.com/

there are already two big p2p programme in China: ppstream and pplive, which are both work very well, but I do think Joost got pretty big market in Chin

1

July 23, 2008

bluedragon: ...

Joost, such failure in US, now wants to dump its inferior technology in China. Good luck Tom, lets see how you can recoup your investment in contents. Perhaps you can acquire cheap contents from China, just like what Joost has done in US. But who would watch them.

2

July 24, 2008

Bright Shadow Films: Good point http://www.brightshadowfilms.com/

talking about Chinese market, the joost has huge market on sports and american tv-series, just look how successful "prison break" is in China, millions of people download these series,same thing happened in "lost" and "heroes",just imagine every "click to view" they charge 0.5RMB, Joost can already handle the whole month bandwidth cost.and you haven't count the advertisement income yet. PP STREAM AND PP LIVE don't really pay the copyright by the way.

3

August 04, 2008

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