Joost becomes YouTube roadkill, starts layoffs
ADOTAS — Despite reworking its technology to work in a web browser, the $45 million video service that was supposed to be a YouTube killer is now on life support.
Joost CEO Mike Volpi is out and a majority of its employees, nearly 100, will be laid off. A much smaller crew will try to peddle the company’s hosting and distribution services. Replacing Volpi is SVP of engineering, Matt Zelesko.
The company raised $45 million but was overtaken by YouTube and Hulu, mainly because it forced people to download software on to their computers to watch video. The experience and capabilities might have been better, but the move by competitors to allow users to watch video easily through web browsers quickly trumped the superior quality. Joost later moved toward that model but it was obviously too late.
The best scenario for the company, according to Peter kafka, is a larger media company buying it.
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