Venice Project in the Wall Street Journal

Kevin Delaney of the WSJ had a piece about The Venice Project, a new peer-to-peer application that delivers high-quality video, in yesterday's Journal. Delaney writes:

"What they're doing is incredibly cool, says Mike Homer, chief executive of nonprofit Internet-video service Open Media Network and co-founder of online video company Kontiki Inc., which was purchased by VeriSign Inc. last year. But "there's just a lot of stuff going on in the industry now that makes what they're doing not so unique."

[Venice co-founder Janus] Friis says the Venice Project isn't late, because it goes further in combining aspects of the Web and TV than any existing offering. Whereas YouTube and other popular sites offer short, low-video-quality clips -- most uploaded by individual users -- the Venice Project plans to offer full TV shows and movies from commercial content owners. [Venice Project CEO Fredrik] de Wahl says it won't let consumers submit clips until quality and copyright issues are resolved.

He says the video is broadcast quality or better. Clips in its current test generally look good viewed full-screen on a PC monitor, but they often stutter, and parts of the images appear as small colored squares rather than the smooth image of a DVD.

Also interesting: the company says that it'll be able to deliver video ads targeted to a consumer's location or viewing behavior. That's something no current video site does, to my knowledge.