Friis returns to video with Vdio

Skype and Joost co-founder Janus Friis is getting back into the online video business with a new venture called Vdio, which is due to launch first in the UK.

Friis was the driving force behind Joost after he and fellow Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström sold the latter to eBay six years ago in a deal that made the Finnish pair billionaires.

Warner Bros and Lionsgate.

GigaOm broke the news last night and a Vdio rep stateside confirmed to the US blog details including management.

Ian Aaron, a former president of TV Guide, is CEO. Patrick Dodd, who also spent time at TV Guide and worked with Aaron at mobile entertainment specialist Twistbox, is senior VP of global licensing.

Former Napster VP of operations Scott Barrow fulfils the same role at Vdio. Priidu Zilmer, who was part of the original Skype team, is creative director. Former Joost software engineer Justin Erenkrantz is chief technology officer.

Nicole Bautista, a one-time content acquisitions exec at Netflix and Sezmi, is Vdio content manager.

The company’s representatives were unavailable at the time of writing. A UK spokesman for Atomico, the venture capital fund set up by Friis and Zennström in 2006, said the company was not involved.

Through Atomico, Friis and Zennström have, however, already set up ad-free music subscription service Rdio, which operates out in the US and Canada.

The duo, who prior to Skype founded Kazaa, were both involved in the early days of Joost, but the online video venture was in truth Friis’s pet project. Joost started out under the codename The Venice Project and, true to form, Vdio has been amassing under the codename Project WBS.

While Joost initially wowed US studios with its sleek interface, the company’s refusal to pay licence fees for content and promise only of a share of potential ad revenues prompted the creation of Hulu instead.

Joost eventually collapsed in acrimonious circumstances with Friis and Zennström launching a string of lawsuits against one-time CEO Mike Volpi. The assets of the business were eventually sold to online video advertising specialist Adconion, which still operates the site.