The Vikings Invade Again. This Time, It's Television.
Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström are fascinating entrepreneurs. First they built the Kazaa file sharing empire, then built Skype VoIP into a business eBay was willing to pay 2.6 billion dollars for. Now they've decided to turn their attention to streaming TV over the internet. Is their "Joost" going to destroy the television, or perfect it?
Can they wrestle the broadcast beast onto the Net? Friis and Zennström are players now, big names with a fearsome track record. Even more amazing (or scary, if you're a TV insider), they have zero stake in the traditional media pillars. They don't own shows, channels, or networks. They don't have billion-dollar ad deals to protect. Steve Jobs has married Walt Disney. Jeff Bezos is dating Hollywood. Google, the ur-online software company, is building a globe-girdling web of proprietary pipes and monster servers. And along come these two Eurogeeks -- where the hell is Denmark, anyway? -- toting serial-killer technology, a multimillion-dollar checkbook, a blank slate, and a crazy dream.
