I first found BitTorrent about 2 years ago when I missed an episode of Alias, the TV show on ABC which has a bit of a cult following. Like most that have used the P2P application, I found the networks efficiency at dealing with huge files astonishing. My first impression was that BitTorrent would take over the P2P world for large popular files, but that it would never be very good for "the long tail" of content. The reason is that you need someone always "seeding" content in the BitTorrent world, and I believed content that didn't have mass market appeal wouldn't be able to maintain trackers.
Well BitTorrent, like most disruptive technologies, evolved to meet the needs of users with long tail content needs. Applications like Azureus and others make it easier to seed content and gather content via RSS feeds. Today there is content like sporting events, TV shows for kids, 80s TV content, etc. all over the net. Missed the last Illinois basketball game??? you can find it on a site that hosts the most recent games as well as classic games from the '89 team.
What does this mean for content providers? With the shut down of centralized tracker sites like Suprnova, it means that hundreds of micro content hosting sites will emerge with out much fanfare... like they have been for the last few months. Content providers will think things are under control, but it will be too late... the masses will have adopted BitTorrent as their portal to the long tail, and once your unmet content needs are fulfilled by a service, it is hard to turn back.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
What a big news day....
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