Investor Danny Rimer Says Joost's Advantage is in the Experience

Posted by: Heather Green on May 10

In light of Joost’s $45 million investment announcement, there is lots of discussion about what the video services advantage will be over competitors. Or for that matter, simply the broad distribution of content already out there. I.E. Why would people use Joost? I spoke briefly with Danny Rimer, from Index Ventures, to get his view of what will make Joost stand out. Here are parts of the interview.

Me: $45 million feels like a lot of money. What does Joost need this for?

Danny: There are a couple of reasons. Realize that this isn’t a startup. It has been in stealth mode for more than a year. Quite an infrastructure there, and they want to provide high availability of the most immersive content to a lot of people. This supports engineering and infrastructure. Part of the money is also to make sure that we intelligently scale the business from the messaging and workforce standpoint. And make sure that you have cushion able to grow alongside competitive partners.

Me: Will the money be used for content partnerships.
Danny: Not really.

Me: Is Joost simply better VOD? Is P2P the value add?
Danny: I have a few thoughts. One, the p2p element is essentially, when you’re delivering a lot of video for a lot of people, it makes sure that you can scale and makes sure you have the same quality experience. Without P2P you would have great difficulties.

Two, I think that what users want is high quality content, having spent a lot of time courting the content partners, discussing how this is a beneficial approach to providing content on the Internet.

Three, These guys, they have always been good at product usability and the product shows that.

Me: What will make people come to Joost instead of going anywhere else they could find this content, since it’s not exclusive?
Danny: It’s just going to be the quality of the experience. What you’re saying right now could have been said about Skype. Their compression technology was the same as other companies were using. But the overall experience Skype provided was superior to other folks because of the underlying archictecture and the ability to provide a superior experience.

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