Adconion will own the Joost trademarks, Joost.com, and the technology that Joost used for video. Joost will continue to operate in some form but it is unknown where they are headed next. Joost had about $45 million in funding.

Index Ventures participated in a $45 million round in Joost a couple of years ago.  Volpi will be working out of the London office at Index.  “In a market downturn, it is a good time to invest,” stated Volpi. “There are a lot of great opportunities out there now.”

Joost announced that they have replaced former CEO Mike Volpi.  Joost SVP of Engineering Matt Zelesko will be replacing Volpi.  However Volpi will remain as Chairman of the board.

As a result of Joost’s lack of growth compared to YouTube, Hulu, and other video services Joost has decided to focus on providing video platforms for bigger companies.  There will also be major layoffs.  Joost employs about 100 people in New York and London.

[via Reuters]

Time Warner is in talks with the company according to a source with the Associated Press.  Time Warner wants to buy Joost at a low price which is bad for Sequoia.  Supposedly Comcast has already turned down buying Joost beause they already own a competing service called Fancast.  Viacom and CBS both have also invested a considerable amount in Joost which makes a potential acquisition from a competing network even more interesting.

Joost initially started as a P2P high-quality video streaming software, but YouTube came out of nowhere back then and people lost interest in the service.  Joost has switched to a web version since then.  More as the story develops.

Twitter: Tweet tweet!  The amount of tweets being sent back-and-forth on Twitter tomorrow will be so substantial that the company is doubling their capacity.  Current TV and Twitter have partnered to showcase interesting tweets throughout the day tomorrow.

Live Streaming: The New York Times, Hulu, Joost, and UStream.tv will be live streaming the inauguration event.   Anyone that owns an iPhone can watch the inauguration on their phone using UStream’s iPhone application.

Flickr: Flickr will is hosting an event at a bar nearby the inauguration in Washington D.C.  Photo enthusiasts will be able to see images pulled from the election and from the induction ceremony.

Microsoft and CNN are working on a way to release a digital panorama of the event using Microsoft’s Photosynth software.  Microsoft is looking for professional photographs and user-generated photos to put together a final panorama of the event.

Facebook and CNN have put together an event that will publish status messages of users on CNN.com Live.  The event is available at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=56799103571

iPhone Application: There is a free 2009 Presidential Inauguration Guide iPhone application available for those who are travelling to D.C.  The application lets iPhone users look up public transit information, find Wi-Fi hot spots, and includes a Zagat guide for the city.

There is a new type of community built around Joost.  The homepage contains what users have watched recently.  There are now over 35,000 videos that can be watched legally on the site.  The videos are broken down by Film, Music, and Shows.  Of those three categories, there are multiple sub-categories such as Anime or Comedy. 

Starting next month, the plug-in will no longer be required according to TechCrunch.  Those who want to watch Standard programming can watch all of it on the web.  To have access to the on-demand programming, the plug-in will be required.  While Joost still has a lot of catching up to do with YouTube and Hulu, they still have a lot of exclusive content.

Joost was started by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom.  Former Cisco Systems executive Mike Volpi currently serves as the CEO.  And Roelof Botha, Partner at Sequoia and former PayPal CFO serves on the board.  Joost has about raised about $45 million in Series A funding.  Volpi announced the changes on the Joost Blog.

Joost was the P2P company that believed that they’d be able to single-handedly be able to take on television sets around the world. That was until CBS, Hulu, iTunes, etc. decided to stream HD-quality TV shows. Now Joost is going to eliminate their desktop software altogether.

GigaOM reports that they are going for a browser-only strategy. It is rumored that Joost is going to create a plugin and users will be able to grab files through P2P on a browser.

Last summer, Joost was the must-have software. But then users discovered that it had lost it’s appeal because of bandwidth limitations, slow streaming, and lack of good content. This happened after Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, founders of Joost and Skype raised $45 million in VC money.

When the news becomes official, this page will be updated. If or when the plugin gets created, check back on Pulse 2.0.

“The BBC recognizes that IP-connectivity is quickly moving beyond the personal computer. This appointment signals our commitment to providing licence-fee players access to BBC content however they want it,” stated Erik Huggers, controller of the Future Media Technology Group at BBC.  “Dirk-Willem has made significant contributions to the development of the internet. His knowledge and expertise will be of great advantage to the BBC and the industry. It is a pleasure to welcome him to our division and I look forward to working with him.”

Matt Zelesko stepped up as the Senior VP of Engineer at Joost.  Zelesko previously worked with Mike Volpi, CEO of Joost, at Cisco Systems.  This news comes about 3 months after the Joost CEO stepped down.

For previous Joost coverage, see: http://pulse2.com/category/joost/

[Information Source: NewTeeVee]

eBay will be shelling out $1.43 billion for Skype-related payments this quarter. About $900 million will be for a write-down of Skype’s valuation and $530 million will be used to settle future obligations. The $900 million is based on impairment, meaning that eBay overvaluated Skype when they acquired the company in 2005 as part of a $2.6 billion agreement.

Michael van Swaaij, eBay’s VP for European operations will take over as the Skype CEO until a replacement is found. Russell Reynolds Associates was hired by eBay to find a replacement.

As Zennstrom steps down, he continues to defend Skype’s growth through an interview. “Very few companies can claim to match the growth trajectory Skype is on and continues to be on,” stated Zennstrom.

“Beyond creating a business, Skype literally touches millions of lives and this is something to be proud of,” added Zennstrom.  ”I would like to think that we have contributed to making the world a little bit flatter.”

Zennstrom is now going to strictly concentrate on Joost for product and content strategy. Coincidentally, Joost opened to the public today too. Niklas Zennstrom studied in Sweden, but spent his final year of school at University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (U of M).  Larry Page also studied at Univ. of Mich. Ann Arbor, where a Google AdWords office opened recently.

Around the time Joost finally released an invite-only release, Pulse 2.0, GigaOM, and Mashable were sending floods of invites manually.  The biggest problem with Joost is that users have to install an application that requires some of the highest hardware specifications.  It would probably take a half-hour for the application to pull up the video menus in developing countries that recently were introduced to broadband Internet.  There is a lot of aesthetic fluff surrounding the application that isn’t necessary for Joost’s primary purpose either.  There’s all types of flashy swirls and videos just surrounding the loading of the application. 

What is Joost’s primary purpose?

Joost’s primary purpose is simply to watch TV shows, mini-movies, and even single music videos.  Essentially, I don’t see a difference between what Joost has to offer versus YouTube, NBC, CBS, FOX, etc.  YouTube has music videos uploaded by Universal, NBC offers full episodes of TV shows, full TV shows on CBS, and FOX has clips of shows that I like such as Family Guy too.

If Joost doesn’t do something soon, their investors may not see much of a return from the money they plugged into the company.  What can they do?  Take YouTube head-on.  Create a web application that complements its application so their time isn’t wasted either.  For example, Joost has music videos from P. Diddy that has crisp, clear quality on its application.  Joost should offer a lower quality version of the video on its web application, then give the user a choice to pull up a higher-quality version of the video on its desktop application.  Thats my suggestion as a former Joost user.