That includes adding more media to the service - movie trailers, podcast support and backup systems that help people keep copies of their media library in the cloud. "We believe that, with a very powerful free application, you can layer on top of it with various products and services that people will buy," says Farantzos. "We met some of their other companies and looked at what they did - and then they convinced us to go into software." Since then, their moves have read like something from the Official Web 2.0 Strategy Guide: build a popular company first and then try to make money later. "Index Ventures seduced us," says Farantzos. In fact, the investors have been so enthusiastic that it was they who initially convinced the company to get started - plucking Johansen and Farantzos out of their technology consulting business to join Silicon Valley's startup scene. And it's an idea that has drawn in big backers: doubleTwist has raised $10m in funding from a variety of investors, including the former Disney chief Michael Ovitz, the Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing and the venture capital groups Northzone and Index.
DOUBLETWIST PHONE NUMBER SOFTWARE
The software is heavily based around Johansen's work breaking down a variety of copy-protection systems - as well as breaking the DVD encryption (known as DeCSS), he was the first to reverse-engineer Apple's Fairplay digital rights mechanism.Īlthough it might seem a niche market, the company is betting that people want to be able to make better use of their technology. "If you have anything you've downloaded from the net, iTunes doesn't support it. "iTunes is pretty good at what it does, but from a consumer perspective it doesn't do everything," says Johansen, when we meet at the company's small, chaotic offices. Right now, they suggest, people get frustrated and confused by software that either locks them in to one provider or just doesn't work across different gadgets. The company's premise is straightforward: that you should be able to take your music, videos and other files and transfer them easily between any of the vast array of gadgets on sale today - iPods, mobile phones, digital cameras, laptops and games consoles. "What we're building is a neutral platform that works with any device or content." "I suppose our two biggest competitors are Apple on the one hand and Microsoft on the other," says Monique Farantzos, the former physicist who co-founded doubleTwist with Johansen. In the end, Johansen was found not guilty of computer crime, but it is clear that he's not yet finished thumbing his nose at the establishment. This put him at the top of Hollywood's most-wanted list and in 2002 (aged just 19) he went on trial in Oslo.
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Better known as DVD Jon, he cracked the movie industry's anti-piracy codes in 1999, enabling anybody to copy DVDs straight onto their computer. The Californian startup boasts one of the world's most notorious hackers among its founders, the Norwegian whiz-kid Jon Lech Johansen.
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