This isn’t directly a music story, but it’s interesting to see the entrepreneurs behind Rdio make a move into the online TV and films space. Kazaa/Skype/Rdio co-founder Janus Friis is the man behind new service Vdio, with a team hired from Skype, Napster, Microsoft, TV Guide and Apache. “VDIO lets you instantly watch the best in TV and movies, right now,” explains its FAQ, published last night after tech site GigaOm uncovered the plans. The company is privately funded, currently in beta, and will launch first in the UK rather than the US. It’s likely to use a subscription model similar to Rdio. The company’s splash page features stills from shows including Mad Men and The Tudors, as well as movies The Dark Knight and Karate Kid. As GigaOm points out, this hints at better content partnerships from the start than Friis’ previous crack at the online video market, Joost. Vdio will be going head to head with well-funded rivals like Netflix and Hulu. While the company makes clear Vdio is run by a separate team to Rdio, we wonder if there’ll be scope for joint subscription plans covering both.
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Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…