Here comes Vdio: Janus Friis' video service launches private beta in UK and US
Vdio, the online video service founded by Skype co-founder Janus Friis, is finally emerging from stealth mode. The company just launched a new homepage, which touts a private beta test, and comes with a few surprises …
Context & Ripple Effects
This beta is the payoff to a year-old scoop: back in October 2011 GigaOM reported the Skype founders were gunning for Netflix with Vdio, and the service has now surfaced from stealth with a homepage touting a private test in the UK and US. For Janus Friis it is also a return engagement — his Luxembourg video startup, the Venice Project, became Joost, which launched publicly in 2007 under CEO Mike Volpi (video interview here) before fading.
The pickup was modest — syndication on The Verge — but the lineage is what makes the story travel: Friis co-founded Kazaa and Skype, so any move he makes into premium video gets read as a challenge to whoever currently owns the distribution layer, in this case Netflix.
First-order effects
- Netflix gains a named challenger with consumer-brand pedigree: Vdio shifts from rumor to live product, with invitation-only betas running in its two launch markets, the UK and US.
- Friis' team gets its first real user feedback loop after roughly a year in stealth, letting it tune the service before any public launch.
Second-order effects
- Content licensors gain another bidder for streaming rights in the UK and US, tightening competition for catalog deals that Netflix and Amazon have largely divided between them.
- Rival streaming services must now differentiate against a founder whose track record — Kazaa, Skype, Joost — signals distribution innovation rather than another me-too catalog play.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the structural story is serial reinvention by file-sharing-era founders: Kazaa, Skype, the Venice Project/Joost, and now Vdio each aimed at a different incumbent distribution layer, keeping pressure on licensed-media incumbents to keep rebuilding their moats.
The trend: Founders forged in the file-sharing wars keep relaunching into licensed streaming, betting that distribution DNA can unseat incumbents who own the content catalogs.