Airtime, Sean Parker's new startup, will launch on June 5, 2012. You remember Parker, the internet entrepreneur and first President of Facebook the and the guy Justin Timberlake played in that movie.
He and his Napster partner Shawn Fanning have been quietly making the rounds in Silicon Valley, raising $8.3 million from the likes of Ashton Kutcher and will.i.am for their latest startup, Airtime.
So what exactly is Airtime? Parker is keeping this one under wraps. Last year, during a panel at the eG8 forum in Paris, Parker said he felt "abused and maligned" by the press, explaining that the Internet media created a caricature of him.
Aside from the June 5 launch date, not much else is known Parker's new startup. What is known is that it's a social video platform inspired by Chatroulette, so there will be some sort of live video chat aspect. This is quite obviously evidenced on Airtime's site, with the statement, "Airtime is a live social video company."
There is also a connection to Facebook as Airtime is inviting users to sign up for early access via Facebook log-in. The Job Listings page doesn't give much away either. The only real droplet of info comes from the Operations Engineer job description as a candidate will ideally have "Cloud infrastructure experience (EC2, Rackspace, etc.)" which hints at a mobile experience.
Another source thinks Airtime will have a focus on mobile according to The Wall Street Journal. Could Airtime be positioning itself to become a video version of Instagram?
There will be plenty of speculation, but it looks like we'll have to wait until Parker decides to open up about Airtime or until the June 5th launch.
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