"Some things have to stay the same."

Janus Friis is one of the last people in the world you would expect to say that. He and Niklas Zennstrom, inventors of Kazaa and Skype, have come to symbolise the disruptive power of the internet.

Speaking last week in London at the FT’s digital media conference, though, Friis suddenly came over all conservative. The TV experience is not broken and doesn’t need fixing, he said. The 30-second advertising slot works just fine. TV viewers actually like it.

He’s kidding, right? Seems not. Friis, like everyone else in the internet video business these days, is so intent on appeasing the established powers in the TV business that messages like this have become commonplace. Web innovators who used to talk about nothing except the user experience are learning how to coddle potential partners.

It seemed to work. Later the same day, BBC Worlwide head John Smith said Friis and Zenntrom’s new Joost service was "more benign that most." Expect a BBC content deal soon to sit alongside the breakthrough agreement with Viacom last month. But who is looking out for the users?

March 14th, 2007 in Internet | Permalink