Joost Video Goes White Label
Mike Volpi, currently the chief executive for Joost, plans to step down from his current role but remain with the company as chairman.
"In these tough economic times, it's been increasingly challenging to operate as an independent, ad-supported online video platform," Volpi wrote in a blog post. "In order to position ourselves well for the future, we began investigating additional lines of revenue for Joost."
Joost launched in 2007 and was never able to gain the consumer traction that an ad supported site like Hulu.com has enjoyed. Before making the switch to being a white label video service, Joost enjoyed content partnerships with CBS Corp, Viacom and Warner Bros.
Now the online video service plans to use its technology platform to ensnare business from media companies and distributors, Joost said in a statement.
"Media companies around the world are embracing internet-based video portals as a key path to distribute their premium video, but building a world-class video portal is increasingly difficult and expensive. Joost will focus on this issue and provide the market with a cost-effective, end-to-end solution for media companies to publish video under their own brands," wrote Volpi.
Those changes will come at the cost of about 100 employees as Joost consolidates into core offices that will be located in London and New York.
With Volpi stepping down as CEO, Matt Zelesko, currently senior vice president of engineering at Joost, will take over as CEO, while continuing to lead the engineering organization. Meanwhile, Stacey Seltzer, currently senior vice president of international business development and content acquisition at Joost, will run the business operations.