Sunday, May 11, 2008
Britain's "Project Kangaroo" to be Powered by Kontiki, others

LOS ANGELES -- Three of the biggest broadcasters in Britain, the BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 are in a joint venture to provide a platform to distribute video programming online. For now, it is called "Project Kangaroo."

Unlike Hulu in the United States, which is a streaming platform, Kangaroo will primarily be a download service. It is expected to launch this year.

Kontiki, the Mountainview, California-based company will provide P2P distribution for Project Kangaroo. Bill Wishon of Kontiki told me that his company's P2P service will be part of a solution that will likely employ more conventional CDN services.

Just last week, Kontiki was spun off from parent VeriSign. Kontiki has had extensive deployment in the U.K. We assume that P2P is an important development to maintain an acceptable level of demand on the "pipes" in the U.K. For a round-up on what's happening with online video in the U.K. these days, check out this piece in the Independent.

I interviewed Bill last Monday afternoon at the Digital Hollywood conference.

-- Andy Plesser