Exclusive: Zudeo Announces One Million Unique Visitors In January

I have just had a chance to chat with Gilles BianRosa, CEO of Azureus. We discussed the exciting news about Azureus latest product codenamed Zudeo. Since its launch in December Azureus gave us plenty reasons to write about this exciting video service – we have already covered its first content distribution agreement with BBC Worldwide and the second one with Bennett Group. This week they have announced a new partnership with Starz Media. It looks like they are really working hard to provide users with incredible number of good videos when the new version of the client is launched later this quarter. But that's not the most exciting thing they have to announce: Gilles actually told me that Zudeo can be proud of a very significant milestone for a two month old product – one million unique visitors in January only. Read on for details:

Gilles, thanks again for finding time to talk to me. It's really great to have you here at Profy with us. But for those readers who have not read the previous posts may I ask you to introduce yourself, your company and briefly describe Zudeo?
Great. I am the CEO of Azureus. Azureus is the most popular bittorent client. Our client has been downloaded 140 million times. It's available in 40 languages. Two months ago, we launched a project codenamed Zudeo, built on Azureus 3.0. Our vision is to build an aggregation, syndication, and distribution platform for rich media content. The platform is open, which means any content creator or provider can publish their work on our platform, in its original format (no loss of quality). For free. We are also licensing content for selected media partners, based on what we believe will be popular with our current and future users.

And are you satisfied with the first results of this idea? I mean, it's been two months since Zudeo's launch – did you reach the goals you expected to reach within 2 months' time?
In January we've had more than 1 million unique visitors, which we believe is very encouraging, after only a few months of operation. Also, this really is just the beginning, we are about to launch a new version of the platform and the client, later this quarter, with plenty of new features, as well as more content, coming from several media companies (the ones we've announced, plus others that we are about to announce).

One million of uniques is really impressive.
That's what we think as well. Especially with no real push from a marketing standpoint. People are passionate about Azureus.

That's great but can you also share some info about the number of registered users?
We will disclose our number of registered “zudeo” users very soon, but let me tell you one thing right now: it's very impressive. More on that soon.

Ok, I'm sure it will be something worth waiting. And now will you describe your content distribution partnerships in more details? What do you want your users to get through them?
Our content partnerships are designed around content that has a fan base, a cult following, yet that is hard to find, online, and sometimes offline. The BBC is the perfect example of that (with all the cult sci-fi and comedy shows). Starz has an impressive anime and sci-fi catalogue.

And do you have some more pending content agreements?
Absolutely. We have closed about 20 partnerships. So far, we have announced BBC Worldwide, Starz!, and Bennett (HD content). And the pace is clearly accelerating. In fact, we'll be announcing other major partnerships next week.

That's a really rapid motion. And when will this content be available to your users?
Later this quarter. We haven't announced an official date yet. It's important to get it right. Features, content, etc.

That's for sure. And I actually have one more question about the pending release. Will the project still be code named Zudeo when the new release comes?
Great question: We codenamed the project Zudeo (aZUreus + viDEO) to quickly create a concept that people wouldn't confuse with Azureus. In the meantime, we came up with a really cool name that everybody loves. So as soon as we are done with trademarks, etc, we will announce this new name (likely prior to next release).

Ok, so many news to expect from you. We'll be looking forward to the opportunity to share them with our readers. Thank you for this opportunity to talk to you, Gilles, I'm sure our readers will enjoy your news.
Great, thanks a lot Svetlana for having me.

I can't actually believe you have not tried Zudeo yet? But if you have not I think it's just about time you rushed there and downloaded the client.