The legal high jinks in the contentious battle over the fate of Skype got worse this afternoon, as former Joost CEO Michelangelo Volpi and Index Ventures filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the founders of Skype–Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, via Joost and Joltid–against them.

It’s yet another chess move among a group of well-known tech players, who used to work together closely and are now at odds.

In a filing in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, Volpi and the London-based Index–where Volpi now works–noted, referring to a bid Zennström and Friis made to regain control of Skype, which they sold to eBay (EBAY) years ago:

“Instead of accepting the fact that their bid failed in the marketplace, Friis and Zennström are now using inflammatory and highly-charged litigation–through companies that have no relationship to the Skype purchase–to try to achieve their personal business goals.”

A spokesman for Joost and Joltid did not agree with Volpi’s assessment:

“Mr. Volpi’s latest motion appears to have been prepared prior to Defendants receiving Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction, which is filled with evidence supporting Plaintiffs’ claims. In light of this strong showing of substantive evidence, much of it from Mr. Volpi’s own correspondence, there is no basis for Mr. Volpi’s assertion that Plaintiffs have somehow failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.”

Index was a small player within a group that won Skype, putting in $75 million, in a $2 billion deal that is set to close in the next few weeks.

The motion to dismiss the filing is not surprising given that Joost and Joltid filed a motion for preliminary injunction against Volpi and Index yesterday.

They are asking that he not use knowledge or confidential information he got at the video start-up in current dealings with Skype.

To complicate things further, the innovative and entrepreneurial pair also own a company called Joltid, which has licensed key technology for Skype to eBay.

Joltid and eBay have already been fighting in court over that agreement, bickering back and forth about whether eBay violated the terms of that deal or not.

Via Joltid, Zennström and Friis also filed suit again against Skype and its owner, eBay, for copyright violations in the U.S.

For good measure, they added the winning buyout group, including Index, Silver Lake Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

And both Joltid and Joost have also sued Volpi personally, as well as Index, making serious allegations about his behavior as Joost CEO.

Here are several key legal filings to peruse, for all you “Law & Order” types:

Motion to Dismiss _00302105_ –

Opposition to Motion For Expedition _00302104_ –

Volpi Opening Brief 10.15.09 _00302101_ –

Joost and Joltid filed a motion for preliminary injunction against former Joost CEO Michelangelo Volpi and Index Ventures, where Volpi now works as a partner, asking that he not use knowledge or confidential information he got at the video start-up in current dealings with Skype.

The move is yet another legal attack from the founders of Skype, who were on the losing side of the $2 billion deal to buy the Internet telephony giant from eBay (EBAY).

Opening the “Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction,” which is shown below and is full of tough allegations about Volpi’s misbehavior:

“This action arises out of the acts of a faithless fiduciary, defendant Michelangelo Volpi, who, despite being the chief executive and Chairman of Joost, embarked on a systematic scheme to breach his fiduciary duties and promote his own self-aggrandizing campaign to become the next chairman of internet telephony leader Skype Inc.”

Volpi, who declined comment for now, was CEO of Joost, arriving at the much-hyped online video start-up to great fanfare in mid-2007.

But the London-based Joost never quite caught fire and began layoffs and contraction this summer.

As part of that development, Volpi then went to Index Ventures, a venture firm also based in London.

And, in one of Volpi’s first deals, Index was one of the smaller players on the winning side of the bid to buy Skype, putting up $75 million.

But also vying for the prize were the Internet telephony service’s founders, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, who had hooked up with a group of private equity investors.

To complicate things further, the innovative and entrepreneurial pair also own a company called Joltid, which has licensed key technology for Skype to eBay.

Joltid and eBay have been fighting in court over that agreement, bickering back and forth about whether eBay violated the terms of that deal or not.

Via Joltid, Zennström and Friis also filed suit again against Skype and its owner, eBay, for copyright violations in the U.S.

For good measure, they also added the winning buyout group, including Index, Silver Lake Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

And both Joltid and Joost–aka Zennström and Friis–also sued Volpi personally, as well as Index again.

They allege tech skullduggery on Volpi’s part, in which he used confidential information he learned at Joost to thwart Joltid.

UPDATE: Here is the press release, with the official filing below:

Joost and Joltid File Motion for Preliminary Injunction Against Michelangelo Volpi

And Index Ventures Management, Seeking to Prevent Their Use of Confidential Information In Connection With the Acquisition or Management of Skype

Wilmington, DE (Oct. 14, 2009)–Joost US, Inc., its indirect parent company Joost N.V., and Joltid Limited today filed a Motion for Preliminary Injunction against Michelangelo Volpi and Index Ventures Management in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. In support of the Motion, the plaintiffs also filed a Memorandum of Points and Authorities containing facts and legal arguments, witness declarations and other evidence.

The Motion for Preliminary Injunction asks the Court to enjoin Index and Volpi from using any of Joost’s and Joltid’s confidential information regarding (among other things) the Global Index Software, the technology developed and owned by Joltid that provides the peer-to-peer capability embedded in the Skype program. The Motion also asks the Court to enjoin the defendants from: (i) using the confidential information in connection with the operation or strategic planning of Skype; (ii) communicating such information to other parties in the “Buyout Group” that has made a bid to acquire Skype from eBay Inc.; (iii) soliciting employees of Joost and Joltid with offers to join Skype; (iv) having communications with current or former employees of Joost or Joltid regarding the companies’ confidential information; and (v) further participating in the Skype acquisition or assuming any position with Skype until a final adjudication of the merits of the case.

The Motion for Preliminary Injunction, Memorandum of Points and Authorities, and supporting declarations are available on the internet at https://www.lexisnexis.com/fileandserve. The case name is Joost US Inc. et al v. Volpi et al and the Case Number is 1:09-cv-708.

The plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the defendants on September 18, 2009, alleging breach of fiduciary duty against Volpi, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty against Index, interference with prospective business advantage, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract against Index, breach of confidence, and civil conspiracy. The Motion for Preliminary Injunction seeks interim relief until the lawsuit can be completed.

And here is the key filing, one of 10 in the case:

PI Brief – PUBLIC –

Is there gold in them thar tweets?

Maybe so, because–according to sources familiar with the situation–Twitter is in advanced talks with Microsoft and Google separately about striking data-mining deals, in which the companies would license a full feed from the microblogging service that could then be integrated into the results of their competing search engines.

Sources said a number of scenarios are being discussed to compensate Twitter for its huge and potentially valuable trove of real-time and content-sharing information, generated from the data stream of billions of tweets from its 54 million monthly users.

These include a number of structures, including a payment of several million dollars to Twitter, along with various revenue-sharing proposals that would give Twitter a piece of the revenue made from search results.

The deals, stressed sources close to the situation, are nonexclusive, especially because Twitter’s management is keen to remain independent and also nonpartisan in the growing search battle between Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT).

This means Yahoo (YHOO)–which recently struck a search-technology and online-advertising partnership with Microsoft–could also license Twitter’s feed to make its search results even more robust, although Boomtown could not determine if the company is in talks with the San Francisco start-up.

Sources said it is also possible that no agreement would be reached with either company.

And execs at Twitter, Microsoft and Google had no comment when asked about talks.

But doing these kinds of data deals with big search players does make a lot of sense, since it would be hard for Twitter to turbocharge its own search engine without running into the big cash-laden guns at both Google and Microsoft, which recently launched its new Bing search service.

Twitter is, instead, seeking to create a large open platform, which many could plug into, from search engines to marketers to publishers to developers.

Twitter has also been considering offering premium services to these groups and is contemplating some form of advertising offering.

But, most of all, Silicon Valley’s hot start-up is focusing now on spurring growth and engagement, along with fine-tuning its product offering.

Being deeply integrated into big search services would give Twitter a huge footprint.

Microsoft had already done a small experiment this past summer integrating Twitter data into search results, starting with tweets of bloggers like me.

How much indexing of its data Twitter will allow is unclear, but the company has certainly bought itself time to think carefully about all its options, given that it now has a lot of money in the bank.

Late last month, Twitter raised another $100 million in new funding, after already having raised $55 million.

This has given it a $1 billion valuation, despite negligible revenue.

The valuation also effectively stated that the innovative company was pretty much putting itself out of play to be acquired and is very interested in forging its own destiny.

Both Google and Microsoft execs have contemplated the idea of buying Twitter in the past, although no serious talks ever moved forward.

If they both strike data deals with Twitter, they will get the next best thing–an ability to offer all the information disseminated on Twitter in search results.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

In a week, the entire advertising sales staff of MySpace will gather at a swanky new seaside resort about 20 miles south of Los Angeles to get a first glimpse of the fresh direction the company is preparing to take under its new management.

The beleaguered social networking site has been in the midst of an effort to reinvigorate its image, spur innovation in its product and–most of all–pull itself out of a too-long slump, even as longtime rival Facebook has seen explosive growth.

Now, with a new team of execs, the News Corp. (NWS) property is putting the finishing touches on a master plan, which will include a new redesign of its hopelessly messy interface and doubling down on a product strategy that will center on, said one source, “what we own”–namely, music and entertainment.

On the agenda, aptly enough, for the 150 ad sales employees, who will gather at Terranea in Palos Verdes, is Ben Sherwood, author of “The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science That Could Save Your Life,” and founder of a Web site of the same name that describes itself as “the place for surviving and thriving.”

Also coming to the meeting will be several bands that have successfully leveraged MySpace as a platform, to talk about their experiences and to play for the crowd.

And, perhaps most importantly, the group might also get to meet its new boss by then, as several sources close to the situation said that MySpace has settled on an exec to fill the key job of running its ad business.

While it is unclear if the deal is completely done, sources said MySpace management will announce the pick this week.

Sources added that MySpace has been particularly interested in one exec from Viacom (VIA) and another from Microsoft (MSFT).

While the sources would not name the Viacom exec, several pointed to Keith Lorizio, Microsoft VP of U.S. sales, as someone MySpace has been targeting.

In late August, MySpace sales and marketing head Jeff Berman left the company as MySpace hired MediaLink, a New York- and Los Angeles-based media consultancy, to help get its ad sales business back on track.

That effort has been led by MediaLink President Wenda Millard, who is well known in the ad industry and was longtime leader of the ad sales force at Yahoo (YHOO).

Getting an experienced top ad exec in place will round out a recent spate of new hiring by MySpace, including a new CTO, Alex Maghen, who moved over from its MySpace Music joint venture, and a new CFO, Mark Rosenbaum.

This has been part of a wholesale flushing out of most of the top execs who worked under co-founder and former CEO Chris DeWolfe by new CEO Owen Van Natta.

Van Natta, along with COO Michael Jones and Chief Product Officer Jason Hirschhorn, have been squirreled away since late April, working at cleaning up the company by replacing management, restructuring its various units and cutting costs, including massive layoffs.

They have also been trying to come up with a plan to differentiate MySpace from Facebook, a good strategy since it is now well-nigh impossible for the Beverly Hills-based MySpace to catch up with the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook’s galloping growth.

While the whole new offering will not be rolled out prominently until at least the first quarter of next year, said several sources, some changes will begin sooner, including a gradual redesign of the site.

Under the new plan, said several sources, the main idea will be to shift the focus to engagement over sheer audience numbers. While MySpace is still huge, with about 70 million monthly U.S. visitors, increasing how much time they spend on the site is the goal.

“It’s not like numbers are not important, but the better metric for MySpace will be how involved users are,” said one person close to the situation. “MySpace needs to win on minutes.”

And, rather than the wider and more scattershot approach of past years, the new direction being stressed is more scalable and focused.

“It is not about getting everyone and their mothers on MySpace,” said a source, “but about being a better site to those here.”

That will include stressing “ownership” of online categories, which for MySpace are music and entertainment, with the hope that advertisers will be attracted to more engaged users.

Unlike Facebook, which is often described as a utility platform for communications between friends, sources said MySpace will be aimed more at being a platform for communities of interest.

That includes using tools from other companies, such as MySpace’s recent two-way synch with Twitter, the hot microblogging service, to link those communities.

Presumably, the company’s August purchase of iLike, the social music start-up, is also part of that plan.

“Instead of the ability to just connect friend to friend in a single social graph, this will be about connecting a person to their communities of passion and interest and to others like them anywhere,” said one source.

Music is the obvious key leverage point, the still-bright spot of MySpace, followed by adding big entertainment categories like movies, television, gaming, video and other pop culture arenas.

(BoomTown request: Become the HQ for “Gossip Girl” addicts, um, fans, and I am so there.)

“MySpace should represent pop culture online to customers and advertisers,” said one source. “The core strength has always been music and that is where the site will really excel, because it binds customers to the service.”

The even heavier music focus on the main juggernaut site, noted several sources, does create an odd situation with MySpace Music, the separate joint venture the site has with music labels to create a massive music community.

While sources do not think News Corp. will attempt to suck MySpace Music back into the main site, due to the complex partnership issues, the idea is to make them even more deeply integrated and to sell them to advertisers as one powerful marketing message.

In any case, several sources noted that one of the most successful parts of the new plan has been to convince News Corp. leaders that MySpace does not have to beat Facebook to be successful.

Sooner than later, of course, MySpace has to do just that.

Will it work? Who knows, but said one source close to the situation quite correctly:

“There is no silver bullet for MySpace–it just has to climb back step by step.”

(Full disclosure: News Corp. also owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

Considering the ongoing skirmishes going on right now between Amazon and Google over digital book publishing, it’s more than ironic that Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos was one of only a few initial investors in the search giant.

But–in one of the many interesting details in New Yorker author Ken Auletta’s new book, “Googled: The End Of The World As We Know It”–it was indeed Bezos who invested $250,000 in the start-up in 1998 at four cents a share.

(Some previous reports have had it at six cents a share and at a $100,000 level.)

Three of the others, according to Auletta, all of whom ponied up the same amount, were Stanford University computer science professor David Cheriton, entrepreneur Ram Shriram and Sun Microsystems (JAVA) co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim.

Later, more angels invested in Google (GOOG), followed by the big $25 million venture round by Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital in mid-1999.

While it was known back when Google went public in 2004 that Bezos held about three million shares in the IPO (Auletta said it was precisely 3.3 million shares), the book has a lot of the details about the meeting between him and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in the Menlo Park, Calif., garage of current Google exec Susan Wojcicki.

He had been brought there, according to the book, by Shriram, who had sold his company, Junglee, to Amazon (AMZN) in 1998.

“I just fell in love with Larry and Sergey,” Bezos told Auletta in an interview–not that there’s anything wrong with that considering the flip-flop relationships of Silicon Valley.

He’d presumably be more in love–and less inclined to be fighting Google, first in search with A9 and now in online publishing–if he had held onto those shares.

That stock would be worth $1.6 billion today.

But a spokesman for Amazon declined to comment on what Bezos did with his Google stake, noting it was a personal investment.

Interestingly, Bezos is also an early investor in the current hotsy-totsy microblogging start-up, Twitter.

A part of Auletta’s book, which is slated to come out Nov. 3, is in this week’s New Yorker in an excerpt called “Searching for Trouble.” It is, oddly, not available online.

In any case, the piece is mostly about the various ways Brin and Page dissed big media moguls, figuratively (destroying old media advertising business models) and literally (showing up at meetings sweaty and wearing skates and gym shorts).

Good thing they never did that to Bezos.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Called My Health Info, the Microsoft (MSFT) offering, which includes a range of widgets and other Web tools, wades into an area that many are attempting to crack, including Google (GOOG).

The service, which will be located on MSN’s health site, will use Microsoft’s HealthVault platform and Silverlight technology, taking the company’s effort to create a platform for storage of health information into the mainstream.

Due to issues of privacy and security, consumers have been slow to warm to loading up their personal health information on the Web.

Microsoft said users can also “research medical concerns, read the latest health news, gain guidance from medical experts, learn about nutrition, and monitor conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes.”

Google has a similar beta product called Google Health, and there are others. In fact, the former head of Google Health, Adam Bosworth, has a similar start-up called Keas.

All efforts are trying to get consumers to embrace and feel comfortable in putting their health information online and offer easier tools to do that.

Here’s a screen shot of My Health Info:

Here’s the Microsoft press release on the service:

MSN Introduces Online Tools to Help People Make Smarter Health and Lifestyle Decisions

From swine flu info to symptom checkers, MSN My Health Info includes a broad range of widgets and tools to attract health-minded consumers.

REDMOND, Wash.–Oct. 1, 2009–Today, MSN released the beta of My Health Info, a new online service that helps people manage their health information on the Web. My Health Info is a unique service that offers people a variety of tools and widgets to upload, organize and monitor health information stored in their personal Microsoft HealthVault accounts. The new service allows people to research medical concerns, read the latest health news, gain guidance from medical experts, learn about nutrition, and monitor conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes.
In addition, MSN is launching a specialized swine flu information center today on the MSN Health & Fitness home page (http://health.msn.com), spotlighting the virus that is currently top of mind for people. MSN works with trusted consumer health information providers such as Harvard Medical School and the MayoClinic.com to keep people informed and armed with data to help them prevent contracting the virus, assess for risk factors, find out where to get vaccinations in their local neighborhood when they become available, and more.

My Health Info delivers features designed for busy parents, adults who are managing the health concerns of aging parents, and people managing chronic conditions and multiple medications. Because the data is stored in Microsoft HealthVault, people can access their information via the Web whenever they need it and share it across multiple connected health applications. My Health Info will allow consumers to do the following:

Customize their page with tools such as allergy, medicine and blood pressure trackers, a lab results bank, body mass index calculators, vaccination information and more

Use information from personal health devices such as heart-rate monitors and pedometers

Access profiles of multiple family members at one time, allowing caregivers to more easily manage not only their information, but their family’s as well

Stay informed by receiving the latest in health news from sources they trust

“People care deeply about credible, timely and comprehensive information about health topics. MSN My Health Info will provide an exceptional selection of resources, tools and information available from a variety of sources in one convenient location,” said Scott Moore, U.S. executive producer, MSN. “We are committed to delighting our customers with information, services and tools that keep them informed and simplify their lives.”

Consumers are increasingly looking for online solutions that help them take better control of their health decisions and their families’ information, and that connect them to the broader health ecosystem in which they interact. The My Health Info service enables MSN to offer a timely service to its users, which will be continually updated to help ensure that consumers are offered relevant tools. The service is connected with Microsoft HealthVault, which stores consumer health information in a controlled and privacy-enhanced environment, while enabling consumers to easily collect and transfer their data across the health system for a more holistic and better quality healthcare experience. The My Health Info site is powered by Microsoft Silverlight technology to deliver a rich, interactive Web experience.

“As consumers are increasingly being asked to manage more of their health and wellness, they are looking for solutions that help them navigate an overwhelming amount of information, enabling them to take control of their personal health data,” said David Cerino, general manager of consumer health in Microsoft Health Solutions Group. “Building on the power of HealthVault, My Health Info demonstrates how we are continuing to provide consumers with the trusted and relevant tools they need to make more informed decisions in support of their health and the health of their families.”

]]> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20091001/msn-debuts-health/feed/ 2 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090929/scribd-ceo-trip-adler-speaks/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090929/scribd-ceo-trip-adler-speaks/#comments Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:01:24 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=18937

Yesterday, BoomTown checked in with Docstoc CEO Jason Nazar about the document sharing start-up.

Today, it’s Trip Adler, CEO of its much larger rival, Scribd.

Launched in early 2007, the San Francisco-based online publishing company allows customers to share a wider range of documents, including books and manuscripts. It now claims to have 10 million documents uploaded.

Recently, some of those landed Scribd in a bit of hot water, with a lawsuit filed by an author alleging copyright violations. The lawsuit claimed that the start-up “built a technology that’s broken barriers to copyright infringement on a global scale.”

No surprise, Scribd denied the allegations.

“Scribd does not want unauthorized content on our site,” the company said. “We built the industry’s leading (filtering) technology to prevent the upload of unauthorized documents. This is one of the reasons why best-selling authors and many of the world’s largest publishers have chosen to put their works on Scribd.”

That includes a deal this summer with Simon & Schuster, a division of CBS (CBS), to sell digital copies of its books, offering publishers more control over pricing and how works are distributed.

Such efforts to become a kind of YouTube for text is certainly part of the plan for Scribd, which has garnered about $13 million in funding, including from Redpoint Ventures.

Of course, YouTube owner Google (GOOG) also has designs in the arena–although it has become embroiled in loud legal battles over the issue with publishers. And so does Kindle-creator Amazon (AMZN), of course.

Those are mighty rivals, along with the need to police itself.

Scribd’s traffic has declined from about 60 million unique monthly visitors to half that recently as it has tried to get a good handle on piracy and other reasons. That traffic has since recovered a bit to about 40 million.

The company has also been adding features, including making the site more social, in order to goose online document and book sales and advertising.

Here’s the video interview with Adler about the business:

]]> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090929/scribd-ceo-trip-adler-speaks/feed/ 0 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090928/docstoc-ceo-jason-nazar-speaks/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090928/docstoc-ceo-jason-nazar-speaks/#comments Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:05:39 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=18850

On a recent visit to Los Angeles, BoomTown stopped in at the Santa Monica HQ of Docstoc, a start-up aimed at document-sharing online.

I have long been interested in the next paradigm for all sorts of publishing (see a post on my visit to larger rival Scribd tomorrow).

And Docstoc is certainly among the more innovative sites, letting users store, search and share business, legal and other documents for free.

Founded by Jason Nazar (CEO) and Alon Shwartz (CTO) and armed with several million dollars in funding from angels and venture firms–such as MySpace COO Michael Jones and Rustic Canyon Partners–Docstoc has seen millions of documents of all kinds uploaded.

Whether this turns into a massive and lucrative business or not is still unclear, but it’s inevitable that one of the start-up players will become the dominant place to find professional documents.

Nazar, whose previous life was as a consultant, talked about all this and more in my video interview:

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