Toluu

The Venice Project™ Blog

The Virtual Couch PotatoAugust 26 2008

“Let’s get together and feel all right.”
Bob Marley

Video entertainment is social. When we’re in front of a television set, we are often with someone. How many times have you felt “left out” when all your friends watched that show last night and you missed it?

So far, viewing video on the Internet has been pretty solitary. You watch your video, have a chuckle and move onto the next. If you’re feeling particularly impressed, you send an email or IM to your friends with a link to the video – and that’s the extent of it. I’ve even gone to parties where we’ve klutzily attached our computers to a projector (“borrowed” from work) and gathered on couches to uncomfortably navigate through clips together. That’s just an example of how much we want to share our videos with our friends.

We love to laugh together, be amazed together, horrified and excited together. Those shared experiences are some of the most entertaining moments for us. Unfortunately, that shared experience is hard to come by online today.

So what can we do about it? Well, Facebook, for one, has taught us some important lessons through its success. Why is it that viewing photos is better on Facebook? It’s because Facebook has placed viewing photos in the context of our social engagement. It’s not just about viewing photos – when I post and tag a photo on Facebook, someone else often comments on it. Another friend is noti

Why Should Video be on the Internet, Anyway?August 19 2008

“I want my MTV.”
- Dire Straits

I used to be in the telecommunications business and have always admired the evolution of cellular telephony. When mobile phones were originally introduced, they were not a substitute for landline phone. They were designed for use in places where there was no access to landline phones – in your car, at a conference, on the beach – few people ever used a mobile phone in the presence of a landline phone. But over time, as prices dropped, quality improved and mobile phone service became richer and richer – they became a substitute for landline phones. In fact, many of us rarely use a plain old telephone anymore. We have become such avid users of contact lists, SMS/MMS, call logs, Google maps – an endless source of mobile information at our fingertips … that the landline phone is the functional equivalent of a paperweight on our desks.

The mobile phone revolution took 15 years.

When I look at our industry – essentially, video and entertainment over the Internet – I see a similar pattern evolving. I anticipate our transformation will probably take less time – thanks to innovations like the mobile phone, people are more comfortable with technology and, in fact, there are now multiple generations who have never known a world without personal technology …

But as much as video over the Internet has been hyped and discussed – and we all know it has been, and for some ti

Net Neutrality and Adam SmithAugust 12 2008

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.
- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

Consumers want ample and unfettered access to the Internet. They want lots of megabits at low prices without caps and thresholds and blocks. Adam Smith wasn’t big on Facebook, but he has the right idea to get consumers what they want today.

For a brief period after the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the U.S. was flush with shiny new ISPs laying fiber and offering attractive Internet services to consumers. During the Internet bubble, capital was easily accessible and billions of dollars were invested in the creation of broadband infrastructure.

That all stopped in 2001 when the telco bubble went the way of the Internet bubble and investors went off to buy subprime mortgages (not to mention the fact that enforcing the Telecommunications Act became an afterthought).

Since then, the ISP market has steadily been consolidating to a smaller number of more powerful carriers. In most markets, US consumers have the choice of only two ISPs. In some markets, there’s only one choice (which is not much of a choice at all). Advocates of Net Neutrality legislation have

A Little About Our WoW LIVE TestAugust 7 2008

For the past two Thursdays, SK Gaming, one of world's top WoW (that's World of Warcraft, for those of you not in the know) guilds has been taking on the Sunwell instance live on Joost. They're going at it again later today, (and next Thursday too), so we thought, what better time then to tell you what goes on behind the scenes here when we do a test of our live service?

(Full disclosure - this actually comes through my colleague Guido, who handles most of our support issues - so apparently, your inquiring minds want to know.)

Here on the scene, in Leiden, we have a group of people on standby. During March Madness, this meant that people didn't get much sleep - fortunately, the WoW event is held at 8 p.m. CET (2 p.m .EDT) so our LIVE team is much more rested these days. The technology that powers LIVE is complex, to say the least, and though it's working better every week, we want to make sure that there are real live people available to solve any issues and guard the streams and their delivery.

We find out about issues viewers might be having through the Channel Chat (go to My Joost -> Widget Menu and choose Channel Chat if you want to join). A bunch of employees participate on the Channel Chat to answer questions and make sure we work as quickly as possible to solve any issues.

How is it working? Well, it

Leadership in Big Companies and Little CompaniesAugust 6 2008

"Our chief want in life is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

In my last role at Cisco, I managed an organization with 7,000 employees and $11B in revenues. From that rather high perch, I stepped into the leadership of Joost - a much smaller organization with great ambitions. Others have done this transition before, but I’ve found it fascinating as it has required a good degree of rewiring for me.

A lot of people asked me which one I like better. Since I’m at Joost now, the “politically correct” answer would be leading a smaller organization, of course. But in reality, I’ve enjoyed both tremendously. While there are definitely differences between the two, fortunately, there are many similarities which have allowed me to apply lessons from Cisco to my life at Joost. After all, leadership is leadership, and while the tactics differ, the overarching elements are very much the same in whatever organization you lead.

I’m too busy managing this small company to cover everything, but I have outlined what I believe to be the most salient similarities and differences between managing the two environments.

Similarities:

(1) Vision and goals. In both big and small companies, you need to have a vision and goals. Employees have to be inspired by the vision and driven by the goals. While the size of the vision is dif