Submitted by Vander of CanalWeb
January 6, 2000

CanalWeb (France), Kamera Interactive (Sweden) and Men@Work (Belgium), Nomad online agents (Switzerland) and A: work in Progress (Netherlands) announced today the creation of a pan European Streaming Media Union.

The purpose of the union is to promote and exchange content and know-how within the group improving the sales and distribution of streamed audio and video content throughout Europe. The list of members will soon be extended to include companies in all major European markets. This is the first agreement of its kind in Europe.

In the US, sales of streaming content on the Internet topped $327 million USD in 1998 and analysts predict that by 2003 the market there will grow to revenues of more than $2.6 billion USD according to the information we received.

Beyond 2003, Europe will be the single largest Internet population with 7 of the top 10 Internet countries located in Europe. Streaming media on the net is poised to become the fundamental service for broadband technology with applications developed for Internet-based services, 3G mobile telephony and digital-TV purposes.

"The demand for streaming media content in Europe will explode in the next few years as the Internet converges with television. This new union will make it easier for content owners and publishers to connect on the large but diversified European market," said Dan Willstrand, CEO of Kamera Interactive.

"The members of this unique network will be able to share know-how and experience in development, production, purchase and distribution of content. The spirit and vision of the founders of the initiative is so motivating that The pan-European Content Platform has to become a standard in the European content market" said Jacques Rosselin, Chairman of CanalWeb.

"Most web ventures in Europe are successful in one or a few countries, but not many achieve European coverage. This is why we strongly believe in the roll out of a content-based pan-European partnership bundling innovative companies dealing with rich media content," Cris Jansen, Director of content Men@Work was quoted as saying.

The union will be officially launched at the Milia 2000 conference in Cannes, February 15 - 18. Until then news about the joint venture will be announced at www.europeanstreaming.com.