Joost's Volpi Touts 'Targetability'

by Gavin O'Malley, Wednesday, Jun 6, 2007 6:00 AM ET
WEB TV STARTUP JOOST HANDED the reins to Michelangelo Volpi on Tuesday, naming the seasoned Cisco executive as its new CEO effective immediately. Joost's founding CEO Fredrik de Wahl will retain his role as the company's chief strategy officer.
Volpi, who sees his engineering background meshing well with Joost's tech culture, explained the power of Joost in one word: "targetability."
"Our biggest asset is targetability, and our belief is that TV advertisers want a high degree of targetability," he said. "From an advertiser perspective, we know exactly who's watching what content."
Joost can tailor its ads to individual users based on information they provide--including geography, tastes, and demographic information--along with behavioral patterns.
At Cisco for 13 years, Volpi most recently managed Cisco's $11 billion routing and service provider technology group, including Scientific Atlanta, as senior vice president and general manager. Previously, he headed Cisco's M&A activity, acquiring some 70 companies during his tenure.
"Mike's track record speaks for itself," said Janus Friis, executive co-chairman and co-founder of Joost. "We've known him for many years, as he was a Skype board member."
With regard to Joost's ad model, Volpi assured that pre-rolls will be rare, and will last no longer than five seconds when they do run.
"We want to hold [off] on the ad until the user is highly engaged," explained Volpi.
Joost, founded by the same entrepreneurs--Niklas Zennstrom and Friis--who brought the world Skype and Kazaa, last month announced a lineup of 32 major brand advertisers aided by a year-long partnership with Interpublic Group's Emerging Media Lab. The advertisers include Microsoft, Intel, Motorola and Sony Electronics. Separate deals have been made with Hewlett-Packard, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble and Nike.
Even before its beta inception in May, Joost explored original ad formats, attempting to improve on the glaring faults of pop-ups, banner ads and pre-rolls.
One new format is an "ad bug," or a brand logo that briefly floats in the corner of a user's screen after encountering a streaming video ad. If users decide to click on the tiny image--designed not to be too intrusive--a new browser window opens with the brand's site.
Unlike video-sharing sites like YouTube, which are dominated by short clips, Joost's mission is to popularize long-form, high-quality, ad-supported content.
The startup has clearly convinced major media companies that it will deliver on these promises. Last month, Joost received $45 million in investment from five prominent media and venture capital companies, including CBS, Viacom, and Silicon Valley venture capital firm Sequoia Capital.
The company made headlines earlier in the year when it signed Viacom as a content partner, shortly after the media titan filed suit against Google for alleged copyright infringement by YouTube.
Since then, Joost has signed a number of additional content partners, including Warner Music, National Geographic, Turner Broadcasting, The Cartoon Network's Adult Swim and CNN--along with programming from Hasbro, the NHL, Sports Illustrated and Sony Pictures Television.