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My TEDx Talk about Physical Media and Home Entertainment

2011-07-28T15:52:00.000-07:00

Adobe Under Attack

2010-05-21T16:51:00.001-07:00

Although commonplace in Hollywood, we very rarely get to see showmanship in the tech industry these days. Some of us younger techies fondly remember the bravado of industry icons like Larry Ellison and Steve Ballmer but lately it seems like the Silicon Valley is overtaken by understated professionalism that leaves many of us uninspired and hungry for a real showdown.

But then there’s Steve Jobs. Never one to disappoint, he’s the last man standing of the Tech 1.0 generation still exhibiting the magnetic charisma we all miss from the nineties-era leadership. And he’s still swinging for the fences, more than compensating for Apple’s defeats in that decade. Just when you thought Techland lost its pulse, at a recent employee meeting Jobs reportedly dropped the software industry equivalent of a WMD on the venerable software company Adobe:

[Adobe is] lazy. They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don’t do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5.

Those of you who follow tech industry movements will know that Adobe seems to be under attack from several directions right now. In addition to Steve Jobs’ very public castigation, Adobe is taking arrows from Google and Microsoft as well through both company’s public support of HTML5. What’s at the heart of this angst? Essentially this is an all out war to control content, developers and ultimately the consumer. Given that Adobe Flash is today’s primary distribution vehicle for video on the Web, media companies should monitor this battle closely.

The digital media industry value-chain is composed of several key constituents:

Content (eg, Studios, Game publishers, App developers)
Platforms (eg, Microsoft, Adobe, Google)
Devices (eg, Dell, HP, Apple, RIMM, Samsung)

Media companies like a distinct value-chains because its analogous to the home video and broadcast industries whereby media companies make a piece of content, hand it off to distribution platforms that define standards for things like terrestrial broadcast signals, DVDs, etc. Devices are manufactured to conform to these standards so that consumers can enjoy media with the same experience regardless of location or device. Along the same lines, YouTube and Hulu leverage Adobe Flash to reach many millions of PCs and Macs, and similarly Netflix uses Microsoft Silverlight to do the same thing.

An alternative value-chain would be one where the Platform and Device are integrated into one entity. Examples of this exist in the game console market. A game developed for Play Station 3 doesn’t work for Xbox 360 and definitely doesn’t work on the Wii. Although gaming software for each platform may leverage the same title or franchise (eg, EA Sports John Madden Football), more often than not, a game publisher like EA has to develop the content specifically for each console, leveraging technology that is often proprietary to each manufacturer.

Adobe Flash is currently the world’s most robust content development platform. It exists on 97% of all computers, most mobile phones, most game consoles, and even many Internet-connected consumer electronics. Flash enjoys a community of developers that numbers in the hundreds of thousands and all of them enjoy the ability to write with one language (Action Script) to reach any Flash-enabled device regardless of operating system. None of the drawbacks of traditional cross-platform development exist in Flash: Flash apps look great almost all the time because Adobe has a knack for putting only as much functionality in Flash as it needs, never more. That makes the software resource-efficient, user-friendly and easy to install. Although Java has been touted as the open-source, technically superior Flash-killer for many years, Flash thrived because of the strength of its developer community and superior user experience. (More info on that here: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=286)

So how did Adobe become ubiquitous? By offering a very strong product (technically speaking) and very affordable pricing. YouTube’s founders chose Flash Video to enable their service because everyone already had it installed on their computers, and to deliver video to those computers using a standard Web server (using HTTP), there was no cost to YouTube other than cost of buying the Flash development (CS4) tools for a few thousand dollars. YouTube is the largest video distribution service in the world and although it was valued at $1.6 billion by Google, Adobe only captured thousands of dollars of revenue from that deployment. Is that bad business? No. That’s precisely why so many developers choose Adobe over alternatives, and why Adobe has such incredible ubiquity on the Web.

Alternative to an ubiquitous, cross-platform development environment, the game-console value-chain is very powerful for the device manufacturer if they can get it. It locks the consumer and the content into one proprietary platform that is owned by the device manufacturer. Traditional attempts to build an integrated device and platform have failed because developers and content generally gravitate to the platform that reaches as many devices as possible. Notable failures have been the Sony Betamax that was much more proprietary and expensive to manufacture compared to the VHS-standard for home video which was less rigidly controlled by one manufacturer. In the nineties, the Macintosh failed to the PC because the PCs were cheaper and had more content and application development surrounding the platform.

But what happens when the proprietary device is also the market share leader? Take the iPod for example. Incredible industrial design, product experience and marketing have catapulted the device into 80%+ market share. With dominant share, Apple was poised to create a developer community that is proprietary to Apple products (the “App Store”). The strategy failed when Macs were less than 10% of the PC market, but as the market leader in portable devices, developers flock to submit apps to Apple. Of course Apple is smart to take its proprietary developer community to its other products, the iPhone and now the iPad. You can bet that Apple will take the App Store as far as it possibly can, because for the first time it owns its own the hearts and minds of the developers!

So when Steve Jobs calls Adobe and its product development organization “lazy,” that is unfair and probably disingenuous. He’s a shrewd competitor that doesn’t want to share his company’s crown jewel: a proprietary distribution channel for content and applications. He probably also remembers when Adobe stopped publishing Photoshop as a native application for the Mac in the mid-90s. This was the equivalent of kicking Apple while it was down, and now with Apple rising up clearly the institutional memory is long.

As for Microsoft and Google? By taking aim at Adobe, it appears that each company may want the world to look a bit more like the game console market with 3 dominant, proprietary platforms. Furthermore, HTML5 is a powerful development environment that is non-commercial. Adobe stands between the consumer and Google or Microsoft and therefore exposes each company to risk of being intermediated by competing commercial interests.

Media companies brace yourself: the balkanization Apple, Google, and Microsoft will try to create result in more complexity and drive up the cost of content distribution. It shifts the balance of power away from you and deeper into the proprietary platform-devices.

Make no mistake however, HTML5 is a very solid improvement over its predecessor and will undoubtedly erode some of Adobe’s value proposition. Because its built into the browser, HTML5 will not suffer the user-experience glitches that Java Applets are known-for. However, media companies need the ability to reach consumers on any platform very efficiently, reliably, and securely. If media companies take Steve Jobs’ comments on face value, they’re likely to suffer a pretty rude awakening when they realize Apple’s lock-in isn’t just about the consumer. It’s about content as well, just as Universal Music Group found out when it unsuccessfully tried to muscle Apple out of its one-size fits all pricing model for music. Cross-platform development (when it doesn’t hurt user-experience) is good for the content business, but I have a strong feeling that’s not what Apple wants.

WTF! Congratulations...?

2010-05-14T09:42:00.001-07:00

There's a fascinating realtime data set available on Speedtest.net: a huge number of field measurements of broadband speed from around the world. And here's a hearty congratulations to my fellow countrymen in the US. With a 29th place finish, we beat Greece!

The country that invented the Internet beat the country that invented democracy by 200 kbps!

Download Speed

1	Republic of Korea	22.60Mb/s
2	Latvia	19.49Mb/s
3	Aland Islands	18.86Mb/s
4	Japan	17.86Mb/s
5	Romania	16.90Mb/s
6	Lithuania	16.55Mb/s
7	Andorra	15.43Mb/s
8	Sweden	15.27Mb/s
9	Bulgaria	14.92Mb/s
10	Netherlands	14.81Mb/s
11	Republic of Moldova	13.68Mb/s
12	Hong Kong	12.45Mb/s
13	Portugal	11.86Mb/s
14	Ukraine	10.99Mb/s
15	Hungary	10.79Mb/s
16	Slovakia	10.68Mb/s
17	Germany	10.17Mb/s
18	Czech Republic	10.11Mb/s
19	Russian Federation	10.10Mb/s
20	Finland	9.96 Mb/s
21	Switzerland	9.96 Mb/s
22	Denmark	9.38 Mb/s
23	Estonia	9.31 Mb/s
24	Slovenia	8.78 Mb/s
25	Singapore	8.52 Mb/s
26	Belgium	8.39 Mb/s
27	France	8.29 Mb/s
28	Norway	8.28 Mb/s
29	United States	7.98 Mb/s
30	Liechtenstein	7.98 Mb/s
31	Taiwan	7.92 Mb/s
32	Greece	7.80 Mb/s

A Free Market (libertarian) View on Net Neutrality

2009-10-28T01:15:00.000-07:00

My parents left India at a time when an autarkic socialist regime actively antagonized entrepreneurs and left hundreds of millions of people in poverty. That’s mostly why they (and millions of others) left India in search of economic opportunity in places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, the UK, the US, etc. I'd venture to guess that most of the Indian diaspora, some 24 million people worldwide, took place between 1950 and 1990 when the Indian regime was its most heavy-handed. A general distrust of government-intervention in economic matters is still pronounced among the Indian business people worldwide, but my guess is that Indian expatriates who left for the professions or with technical degrees are more motivated by racial issues than liberal economic values (by the way, nice work, Mr. President, and thank you for the Diwali message!). Theories on the political leanings of the Indian Diaspora are a topic for another blog post.

I've been trying to clarify my stance on Net Neutrality in light of a general desire for less government intervention in our lives. The Silicon Valley (whether it recognizes it or not) is philosophically libertarian. We take pride in our self-sufficiency, capital efficiency, lack of regulation, and fairness to employees, unlike numerous industries dependent on corporate welfare to stay afloat, and labor unions to protect the rank-and-file. When the going gets tough, we fix it ourselves, and very rarely turn to the government for help... much to the chagrin of polticians who will always try to fill campaign coffers with Silicon Valley money.

So is it possible to be simultaneously a proponent of Net Neutrality and Free Market Capitalism? Most right wingers would argue that Net Neutrality is a huge encroachment on the property rights of the ISP industry. Furthermore, they worry whether it invites further regulation of the Internet in the future. But given the obvious fact that the Internet has become so essential to people for their jobs, education, and entertainment, is it really possible to deny that a neutral, fair, and open network is in the consumer’s interest? ISPs have been pretty darn neutral over the last 15 years, and it has been in their interest to be so with data subscriptions generating tens of billions in new revenue streams. A neutral network is definitely the reason the Internet we know and love exists (at least according to those who built the Net).

Putting Neutrality in practical terms, if a website you load, video you stream, or file you download was degraded in performance without warning, where would you take your customer service claim? Do you call the Website provider? The ISP? The manufacturer of your PC or router? The publisher of your operating system, firewall software, or browser?? The Internet as a packaged experience is truly miraculous when you consider how many layers of technology and services exist to simply load a website. Fundamentally, what people really want is disclosure. We want to know if the ISP, which is the most invisible layer in the “Internet stack,” is responsible for an improved or degraded experience for any of the services we use.

As consumers, how could we desire anything less than a fair and open Internet? Analogously, we’re in favor of clean food in our restaurants, functional planes in our airlines, low-emissions from our cars, clearly marked lanes on our toll roads, and stock brokers who don’t lie about the value of our 401ks. The debate lies in how we achieve these outcomes from the private sector. And if we’re being sensible, how can we achieve these outcomes using the Government as little as possible? After all, I don’t think anyone really loves the idea of using the legislature to settle disputes when there are more responsive/efficient mechanisms available, right??

Disclosure, and clear Rules of the Game are good for everyone. Entrepreneurs whose ingenuity has driven the Internet thus far desperately need more clarity. Ambiguity is not a good thing for entrepreneurs because it scares off investment. The FCC could do start-ups a great favor by clarifying what our country’s broadband policy actually is. That will usher in new confidence and investment for entrepreneurs that are desperately looking for ways to finance their ideas in a tough economy. But before the Government has a chance to do anyone any favors, why don’t ISPs proactively do it themselves? Everyone around them is asking for the same thing, so why don’t they respond??

When Comcast tried network management procedures that inhibited BitTorrent transfers in 2007, consumers had a very negative reaction to the practice. The public outcry compelled Comcast to change policies, but ultimately no government action was needed because Comcast responded to the market. The free market prevailed mostly because the people “injured” by Comcast’s network management policy (ie, YOU) are probably the most passionate, the most informed group of citizens in the world. You are extremely focused on this issue, and you have ample means to scream bloody murder if you are not happy (through blogs, youtube, twitter, etc).

Outside of the BitTorrent/Comcast incident, it’s difficult to cite any major confrontations requiring new laws and regulation. Most proponents of Neutrality are mostly fearful of bad behavior in the future. Imposing punitive measures to enforce Net Neutrality seems premature and even unnecessary in my opinion. Not being a policy maker, I will characterize my personal views in broad strokes, again striving for as little regulation as possible:

I think the activists, regulators, and law-makers in this area would be wise to define what we want from the ISP industry and couple those things with rewards (eg, tax breaks) rather than penalties.
Furthermore, ISPs should figure out a way to self-regulate through some non-governmental, Self Regulatory Organization that collectively publishes guidelines for network management, discloses the practices of its membership, and praises/rewards its membership for investments made to improve the Internet experience.

If the ISPs proactively embraced Net Neutrality (since they’re pretty much already neutral, anyway), and then figured out a way to self-police, wouldn’t the need for new laws pretty much dissipate? Analogously, the securities industry self-polices itself with the NASD/FINRA. Couldn’t an equivalent non-governmental, SRO be formed to handle these matters before ever escalating to the FCC? The subscription TV services (MSOs, telcos, and DBS providers) have banded together in the TV Everywhere initiative... Seems like the right stakeholders are already at the table. They should just nip this issue at the bud.

A lot of folks worry whether Net Neutrality, if implemented, will open the door for further regulation. I am less concerned about that if Neutrality is implemented with positive reinforcement. Or better yet, if ISPs working through a new industry group can evaluate the “ask” we have as consumers, and choose to take it or not. If ISPs reject the tax break, either we’re asking too much or not giving them enough. Surely an ISPs shareholders would love the new-found cash flow in an economic climate like this, and if the “give” is what they’re giving us anyway, everyone’s happy!

And what the color scheme should be.

2009-07-27T15:51:00.001-07:00

I grabbed this snapshot from the latest BoConcept catalog because it was pretty close to the color scheme our designer came up with. Maybe less fancy/highend materials, but we won't be far off from the overall look.

Whuddya think??

But we know where we are headed

2009-07-27T15:50:00.001-07:00

Our architect came up with this 3D rendering of what the space will look like (it doesnt include the furniture but the layout is pretty accurate.

Getting closer...

2009-07-27T15:49:00.001-07:00

The laws of physics (and San Francisco City permits!) are a real drag.. but we are less than 2 months from letting folks in to use the incubator space..

Web-to-TV momentum happening fast!

2009-05-05T12:49:00.000-07:00

It took nearly 10 years for DVRs to reach "mainstream" adoption, ie, 30% reach. At that level, Nielsen finally took notice and started measuring the time-shifted audience so Networks could start to bill for those eyeballs.

In a fraction of that amount of time, Internet video has seriously penetrated the Living Room. According to Dan Frommer and In-Stat:

"More than 40% of U.S. households under age 35 watch Internet video on their TVs at least once a month, according to research firm In-Stat. That includes watching via game consoles, Web TV gadgets like the Roku box and Apple TV, and hooking up a laptop to the TV. Increasingly, it will include TVs with Web video built-in. Within five years, 'the number of U.S. broadband households viewing Web-to-TV content will grow to 24 million,' In-Stat estimates."

I don't think this will be nearly as disruptive to "traditional" distribution (ie, MSOs, DBS, Home Video, etc) as analysts/reporters like to believe.

There's absolutely no evidence of cord cutting happening, as Philippe Dauman has confirmed. Furthermore, Big Media providers are no strangers to distribution windows and managing complexity in their distribution strategy. Web video reaching multiple platforms will ABSOLUTELY be additive and incremental opportunity for the media companies, increasing the level of engagement media companies enjoy with their end-users, and augmenting the pie for everyone.

"Third Spaces"

2008-11-16T11:53:00.000-08:00

I've been exchanging ideas with Jamie King on co-working spaces. By background, Jamie is the entrepreneurial filmmaker behind Steal this Film. He takes pride in his relationship with a number of entrepreneurs, technologists, and progressive thinkers the world over.

We've both glossed over the work The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg, who coined the term "third place." Third Place (taken from wikipedia) is:

"a concept of community building to refer to social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of home and the workplace. In his influential book argues that third places are important for civil society, democracy, civic engagement, and establishing feelings of a sense of place. Oldenburg calls one's first place the home and those that one lives with. The second place is the workplace — where people may actually spend most of their time. Third places, then, are 'anchors' of community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction. All societies already have informal meeting places; what is new in modern times is the intentionality of seeking them out as vital to current societal needs. Oldenburg suggests these hallmarks of a true 'third place': free or inexpensive; food and drink, while not essential, are important; highly accessible: proximate for many (walking distance); involve regulars – those who habitually congregate there; welcoming and comfortable; both new friends and old should be found there."

Jamie's concept called "[open/space]" provides a situated architecture for co-operation, exhange and hire for urban information workers. Information workers feel isolated when based in their home and yet dislike office space. Public wifi has allowed retail chains like Starbucks to take advantage of this, providing a minimal infrastructure of (limited) connectivity, electricity (where
available), refereshments, and facilities.

However, such spaces are not designed for purpose. For Ray Oldernburg, the Third Place is a "distinctive informal gathering place." It should:

make one feel at home
nourish relationships and a diversity of human contact
help create a sense of community
provide numerous opportunities for serendipity
promote companionship
allow people to relax and unwind

[open/space] takes cues from these principles, while adding some its
own. It is intended to:

provide opportunities for co-operation and exchange
facilitate and potentiate people's live-work practice
foment ideas and promote original thinking

INFORMATION/ARCHITECTURE

[open/space] is a large, bright, warehouse-like environment in which the traditional 'coffee lounge' architecture is secondary to a designed soft-work, research and creative environment. Thus, open/space combines:

Group work stations with transparent but effective sound-baffles, allowing groups to work together without creating or being affected by too much noise pollution
Open group tables for casual work and less intensive production
A limited number of individual desks, encouraging mingling and interaction
A limited number of fixed terminals (this is not a Web Cafe)
Lounge sofas
Internal low-power FM & streaming radio station offering users the chance to cue their own radio
Fast connectivity and, importantly, a robust local network with free file storage
A coffee bar providing *good* espresso etc., and other liquid refreshments, without alcohol until a watershed point
Presentation rooms with projectors, audio facilities, etc.
Some document production facilities including a printer/scanner/copier/fax

[open/space] also features a bespoke social networking system. People using Web services in the space are kicked to a page asking them to share with others their current work, skills and so on. If they wish to share, the information is shared via a web application which offers interest-based filtering, scheduling, messaging and so forth.

In the space itself, this web-application outputs to a visual display which can show people at a glance information such as:

What the prevalent curent strands of interest are
Who is working on what, with whom
Who wants to work, co-operatively or for pay
Who has open projects or projects seek collaborators
What ideas are open for discussion
Scheduled open meetings
Scheduled outings, parties, etc.

While this board cannot be seen from outside, [open/space] combines an online and situated approach to networking people. A web-based service allows people to import (if they want) biographical data from other dedicated databases, and to add their information fresh if neccessary. This can be used from inside or outside [open/space] to register interests, skills, and the basis on which a person will work or co-operate with others. In addition 'dates' can be made for meetings, or days scheduled on which a person will be present in the space, avaialable for meetings and so on.

BUSINESS MODEL

open/space can sustain itself through a combination of retail (coffee, refreshments, stationery, consumables) services (print production, presentation support, private hire of rooms) and premium charges (e.g., a guaranteed workspace, flat-rate coffee). Sponsorships are also available with the right community built in the space.

POTENTIAL ISSUES

Jamie believes it's critical to delberate how best to attract the right kind of activity and the right kind of people, perhaps through positive reinforcement of their work in the space. Without such provisions, there is a chance that [open/space] will be perceived merely as an ordinary cafe with above average amenities.

Jamie, thanks for sharing [open/space] with the rest of us. It's remarkably similar to the project my partners have underway, a testament how sorely a true Third Place is needed in this knowledge economy.

ground zero

2008-11-10T11:01:00.001-08:00

oh boy, software is far more manageable than real estate...

Starting a new gig...

2008-11-06T01:24:00.000-08:00

I am excited to share some news regarding some personal changes at BitTorrent. Back in March, I indicated to my Board of Directors that I'd like to resign from BitTorrent in order to focus on a new venture. I felt comfortable moving on after we as a Board had recruited some strong leadership including a new CEO, CFO, and CTO, and agreed to a transition plan for me. As of several weeks ago, I officially transitioned from Co-Founder & President to a Co-Founder & Board Director.

My BitTorrent tenure certainly didn't feel like four years, but time flies when working among good people, world-changing ideas, and great fun!

What attracted me to BitTorrent in the first place (and what is still inspiring to this day) is its ability to provide people true digital freedom. BitTorrent exemplifies market principles, tends toward decentralization, and operates on principles of meritocracy — all great virtues in my book! There have been few technologies in the history of mankind which have had such a massive impact on so many people, giving them the ability to communicate and benefit from each other. For its direct and indirect benefits, I believe BitTorrent sits among the handful of important technology breakthroughs such as the printing press, broadcasting, and the Internet itself. Why? Today's publishing technology (like blogs, bittorrent, and video sharing sites for example) quite directly forge a level playing field for creativity. And indirectly, these tools force large media companies to realize that there is no longer scarcity or a stranglehold on distribution that locks people out of self-expression. Anyone can speak to the world in any format, without filters. Freedom of Speech has never been so available to the masses. How these large corportions respond to this fundamental realization will benefit many many millions of people--creators and consumers alike.

I am excited to continue contributing to BitTorrent as a Board member. The last four years have been a true adventure. We somehow managed to start the company amidst intense competition in the BitTorrent client space and we now have a great executive team focused on the BitTorrent client, DNA and SDK, reference-able partners in each program, a lucrative toolbar deal, and a massive and growing userbase with leading market share. The company is poised to continue its long march to success. Principal among our strengths is an extremely great set of people and trusted network of partners. You've all been tremendously good and gracious people to work with; thank you for that!

What's next for me? A few possible directions but most notably, my friends Steve Chen (from YouTube), Aber Whitcomb (from MySpace), Jim Young (from HotOrNot) and I purchased a small building in the Mission District of San Francisco where we intend to build a physical environment conducive to innovation, collaboration and company formation. We all spent a fair amount of time in cafés as we were fostering and growing our own companies, and there will definitely be a caffeinated element to our new venture. More than that, we want to invite the next generation of tech entrepreneurs to use the facility as their initial base of operations. We intend to invest our time and money among this group trying to hatch the next few big ideas. I invite any of you to stop by and get involved. We intend to have many events there and if you're feeling the itch to start something of your own, come on down and do it with us!

If you'd like to hear more about my next venture, I'll be sure to post updates to this blog.. pictures are coming soon!

Bravo Alan..

2008-10-23T16:48:00.000-07:00

The NYTimes ran an article today entitled: "Greenspan Concedes Error on Regulation" and it seems like the economic geniuses amidst us have claimed some sort of intellectual victory in Greenspan's concession. Here's Alan's quote in the article:

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms,” Mr. Greenspan said.

Referring to his free-market ideology, Mr. Greenspan added: “I have found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I have been very distressed by that fact.”

Mr. Waxman pressed the former Fed chair to clarify his words. “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working,” Mr. Waxman said.
“Absolutely, precisely,” Mr. Greenspan replied. “You know, that’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.”

Have we as "Ladies and Gentlemen" stooped so low as to kick a guy when he's down? I doubt that a capitalist of Alan's tenure completely changes his stripes, particularly with 40 years of success and tremendous wealth creation behind him. He looks at the current meltdown empirically, adjusts his worldview, and suggests new regulations to address unchecked greed and profligate behavior all around, and gets back to business.

I doubt very much that any of the armchair quarterbacks currently pointing fingers have anywhere near as much understanding of what really drives the economy as he does. And sure, he's learning in real time (as we all should be) how this organic beast that is our macro economy actually behaves in totally unprecedented conditions.

Corrections happen as a matter of course, and our financial engineering has tried to smooth out corrections in favor of long term stability... but we cant foresee every unintended consequence of every financial instrument that has provided the average American with so much in the way of economic wellbeing. The aggregated portfolios of risky assets got huge, and the bigger they are, the harder they fall. But ask anyone who has lived within his/her means if they are in bad shape right now.. i doubt it. They're buying foreclosures with cash because an entire society at all levels was living above its means!

Instead of looking for quick fixes, simple answers and scapegoats, can we all ask ourselves what we individually have done to contribute to our cultures excesses? Mr. Waxman?? Even Saturday Night Live picked up the scapegoating going on.. and economic policy should be governed by data, research, analysis, and intellectual rigor... not reactionary sentiments driven by political ambition. Mr. Greenspan, thank you for being an example of a stand-up, mature leader accepting your hand (whatever it may be) in the current mess.. I wish more folks in the Beltway, Wall Street, and Main Street would follow your lead.

What a day!

2008-03-27T23:34:00.000-07:00

I love days like this. They seem to happen every couple of years for us.. the press pits us (a fun little San Francisco tech company) up against a monolithic industry (like Mass Media a couple years ago, or the Cablecos most recently). Naturally, most of the viewing public assumes we're toast. My friends, for the second time in a row, its clear to us at BitTorrent that conversation wins over litigation.

Today we announced that Comcast and BitTorrent are officially friends (video). We're going to make sure that our products treat each other better because in doing so we create a better experience for our users. Most importantly, this is going to help the Internet community as a whole because we have committed to sharing whatever optimizations are made (to both the network and the application) with other ISPs and application developers through standards bodies (like the IETF and bittorrent.org). This is a win for BitTorrent (big B) and bittorrent (small b) and all of the popular applications on the Internet.

One of the better treatments on the deal we negotiated with Comcast was by Andy Patrizio at InternetNews. Here are some excerpts:

Comcast is migrating to cable data standard DOCSIS 3.0, which can hit speeds of 171 megabits down and 122 megabits up on a four-channel network. "As we roll out DOCSIS 3.0, we will have the ability to introduce speeds of up to 100 megabits to customers over the next two years, with up to 160 megabits or more in the future," said Douglas.
To that end, Comcast has also said it would close the gap between upload and download speeds. Currently, a typical Comcast customer can download at up to six megabits per second, but their upload speeds are just 384 kilobits per second.
That model worked in the '90s, when a click on a link sent out a few bits from the user and a lot of data was sent down to the user's computer. They just didn't need the same bandwidth up as down. But in a social networking world, that model doesn't work any more, maintained Navin.
"If there's anything central to Web 2.0 and apps made in the last few years, people want to have social experiences," he told InternetNews.com. "It's no longer a one-way street. A new model means we need a whole lot more upload capacity than we have today."

BitTorrent clients on 13%+ of desktops (and growing!)

2008-01-27T20:53:00.000-08:00

In the hustle of the holidays, I skimmed this report but forgot to relish in its conclusion. According to Digital Music News, a research group with a statistically significant sample of desktop PCs claims that more than 13% of desktops have a BitTorrent client installed. That's awesome. And here's the market share amongst us client developers:

Rank Application % of PCs

1 uTorrent 5.56%

2 Mainline 2.28%

3 Azureus 2.11%

4 Bitcomet 1.89%

5 Bitlord 1.27%

A few points:

1. There are some ISPs who would have you believe that the BitTorrent userbase is less than a few %-points of their subscribers, and they generate somewhere near 40-50% of all Internet traffic. Not true. And ISPs, here's a newsflash: Your customers want this technology. Media companies want it too! And while more than 10% of your customers already have it, the BitTorrent client is going to be on 80%+ of desktops in 3 years.

2. The second most popular client is the Official BitTorrent client (commonly called "Mainline" in the P2P community). This was the first client and the fact that it's still in the top 2 is a testament to the strength of our brand and some great engineering at BitTorrent HQ.

3. But the client which came from behind -- the newest entrant in the list -- is also one that I started using as soon as I discovered it. I loved it so much that I got in touch with the developer and tried to recruit him heavily. I take some personal pride in identifying this great software early, and after hanging out with its author in France, at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 (which I might add is a GREAT and somewhat poetic place to negotiate with a budding P2P company), I just worked out the deal to acquire uTorrent AB. And my timing couldn't have been better:

Ludvig, hat's off to you brother, and here's to the next 50 million downloads of uTorrent!

Ringu: A Showcase for P2P Ad-Supported Streams with BitTorrent DNA

2007-12-13T18:16:00.000-08:00

As a showcase for BitTorrent DNA, check out Ringu: a great Japanese thriller from Kadokawa Pictures:

Beta Blue? More like Alpha Blue

2007-12-11T22:25:00.000-08:00

I was by coincidence on flight 641, JetBlue’s inaugural flight with in-air wifi service and I am a bit disappointed. Although this is being touted an industry first, I was an enthusiastic user of Connexion a lot when flying from SFO to Munich on Luftansa. That service was great – you could get full web access with the in-flight wifi service at roughly ~128 kbps (that’s a guess), which was enough to browse pages with images and even make VoIP calls (your fellow passengers would love that). Not enough to stream video smoothly or get your torrents rollin’, but I gladly paid the per flight fees (which weren’t cheap!) for access.

And then there’s Beta Blue. After a bit of fanfare at take off, Jet Blue’s marketing department and representatives from Live TV (their subsidiary providing this service to Jet Blue and I believe Virgin America?) strolled the cabin trying to get people online. At 10,000 feet the service began and it was glitchy at best. I couldn’t get pages to load at all and when I did, I got the following splash screen when trying to load google.com:

Yep, that’s right, only 2 web services available: Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger, which in reality was Yahoo WAP Mail: http://us.m.yahoo.com/p/mail and Yahoo Web Messenger: http://webmessenger.yahoo.com/ with a special “In Sky UI”:

No other web pages permitted, and connectivity was extremely slow. Couldn’t keep a constant connection to the messenger service and could never dream of running a video stream or P2P download...

Unless of course the airline kept a BIG web+ P2P content cache in the plane! That could be very cool if pre-cached with a few terabytes of high quality videos and popular websites. And with plenty of in-flight bandwidth over the wifi radio and a bittorrent client that supports zeroconf, I could get very excited about the possibilities.

Now in going through that big expense in building out and launching Beta Blue – did anyone think to put AC outlets in the seats?? Seems like a no brainer with the wifi and all. Once you do get a connection (good luck!), better hope you have enough juice to use it!

The Jury is still out on Verizon Wireless

2007-11-29T19:50:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling Comcastic about this Verizon Wireless news of late! It's hard for me to get excited about the much applauded open data network VZW intends to offer by the end of 2008. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a fantastic gesture that will likely afford the company significant market share gain if executed correctly, but I’ll reserve my praise until I actually find it useful. And here's why:

As a longtime Qualcomm shareholder, one doesn’t have to convince me of the merits of a CDMA network and its spectrum efficiency. And having spent time in Korea, I’ve seen what the future of mobile data offers us in the United States. But we can't forget that Verizon Wireless is the same company that currently offers one of the weakest wireless data plans in the world. I remember the first time Verizon received praise for its wireless data service. It was reputed to be fast, while being marketed as “unlimited broadband access”..
.. thank you consumeraffairs.com for bringing the truth to light. “Unlimited broadband” as defined by the Verizon Wireless service is a significant stretch of the truth.

I’ve had several friends and colleagues see their accounts canceled with no warning or even adequately disclosed fact that if your usage over a 30 day period exceeds 10 Gigabytes of transfer, you’re hosed. In a cancellation notice, VZW will abruptly inform you that, “This level of usage is so extraordinarily high that it could only have been attained by activities, such as streaming and/or downloading movies and video…"

Oh my! Streaming and downloading video! God forbid someone would use “unlimited broadband access” for video, because that would be unheard of. Online video has only been around for the last 10 years despite Mark Cuban’s recent efforts to stop it (conveniently after he cashed out of an online video service years ago that no one ever used).

What will it take to get 1st world broadband service in the United States? Being the perpetually optimistic capitalist, I hope the Verizon (the telco, not the wireless company) which is boldly deploying 20 meg symmetric FTTH will shed some wisdom on its wireless cousin. And lets hope that VZW’s move ignites some competitive forces that will open up this country's network and bring us inline with the rest of the 1st world (in terms of broadband infrastructure).

ISPs will come around.. just give them 12-18 months..

2007-11-15T19:36:00.001-08:00

Introducing BitTorrent DNA

2007-10-09T13:12:00.000-07:00

We made an exciting announcement today, unveiling BitTorrent DNA.

DNA is a content delivery service that allows websites to very quickly implement BitTorrent peer-accelerated delivery for downloads and now video streams as well. A few online media companies have been trying to develop their own P2P delivery technology with mixed success. BitTorrent DNA saves them the time and investment, while being truly best-of-breed (developed by the largest P2P R&D team ever assembled, including my business partner Bram Cohen).

DNA is designed to be an overlay on existing infrastructure, so don't replace any of your hardware or service providers. DNA installs in about 5 minutes and dramatically improves the user experience for video streams and downloads, making them faster and more reliable (no more choppy video!)

Here are the news clips from today:

WSJ: “BitTorrent Inc. … is planning today to unveil a technology that it says will make high-quality Web video affordable to a wider range of content providers.”

Forbes: “…it is an intelligent solution for faster, more efficient rich media, a very real and useful technology.“

Reuters: “BitTorrent DNA can boost the efficiency of video-streaming networks … which helps speed the delivery of Web content.”

FT.com: “[BitTorrent DNA] …spreads the load and speeds increase as more users join the download and this process of sharing.”

CNET: “BitTorrent is set to announce on Tuesday morning the availability of a new enterprise content delivery product, BitTorrent DNA.”

TechCrunch: “BitTorrent DNA … effectively creates a virtual network of viewers’ computers that will share amongst themselves to speed up downloads for popular files.”

Become a BitTorrent publisher

2007-09-29T19:29:00.000-07:00

If you have a movie, music video, game, or software package you'd like to upload and market to bittorrent users, check out: http://www.bittorrent.com/publish

The system is invite only at the moment, so get in touch if you've got something you'd like to share.

The ‘Five Orders of [entrepreneurial] Ignorance’

2007-08-23T18:14:00.000-07:00

My friend John Merrells posted a gem called The ‘Five Orders of Ignorance’... here's the gist of the original piece written by Phillip Armour available here:

The ‘Five Orders of Ignorance’

Ignorance Order One is what you know that you know. As an entrepreneur it’s OK to be arrogant about what you know that you know, that’s what drives you forward against all the odds and the naysayers.

Ignorance Order Two is what you know that you don’t know. You must adopt humility in equal measure to your arrogance about what you know you don’t know. Solicit advice from experts and listen carefully. Hire people smarter than you with the skills that complement yours.

Ignorance Order Three is what you don’t know that you know. This is about trust of your gut instincts. Don’t hire people who don’t feel right and don’t do deals with people you don’t feel good about. Believe in your values and principals.

Ignorance Order Four is what you don’t know that you don’t know. This is something to fear in yourself and others. Avoid the fakers and the liars. If they can’t be moved to Ignorance Order Two then you don’t want to be dealing with them.

Ignorance Order Five is not knowing about the Orders of Ignorance. Congratulations dear reader as you are no longer classified by this order

getting things done...

2007-08-14T10:08:00.000-07:00

"Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry. Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life. The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail."

~ Lao-tzu

Search market share: Ask and Yahoo bucking the trend?

2007-07-16T01:09:00.000-07:00

Since i started working on websites in the mid-90s, one of my favorite things to do is pour over site stats and analyze trends. Joining Yahoo was a dream because no where could you get so much site data aggregated in one place to study. One of the easiest things to do with any standard website dashboard is measure referral traffic and estimate the trends for search engine usage. I posted about this once a couple years ago and thought I'd throw a few data points up again (from bittorrent.com) to see how the world has changed. Here are search engine referrals from the last 3 months:

	Jul-07	Jun-07	May-07
Google	81.40%	81.42%	82.38%
Yahoo	8.39%	8.38%	7.75%
MSN	0.96%	1.02%	1.10%
AOL	0.60%	0.60%	0.64%
Ask	0.39%	0.27%	0.18%

Some interesting points to note, however this is by no way a conclusive set of data -- you should take this with a big grain of salt before making any decisions based on it:

In 2005, when I posted this before, Yahoo was bleeding market share and I actually thought about selling some stock because of it.. (whoops!) This time it appears that the 'Hoo may be picking up some points, but the stock certainly hasnt reflected that.

Google is holding up just fine, but MSN is slipping. To be fair, Live.com picked up a full percentage point of referral traffic in July on both bittorrent.com and utorrent.com (which isnt reflected in the numbers above). Combining MSN and Live however is still less than then 3% market share it had in May 05.

The interesting story however is Ask.com -- although a decent sized search engine (i hear its Google's largest affiliate now overtaking AOL), it was traditionally off the radar for bittorrent users (who tend to be heavily male, early-adopter types). Probably because of its emphasis on natural language search back in the day, Ask had an older, female skew in its userbase. For the first time Ask.com has surfaced on our referral logs and it's the fastest growing among them (doubling in the last two months). This is probably a result of its re-positioning campaign that still confuses me (how could any marketer be so out of touch??), but doesnt change the fact that Ask really has improved its product tremendously over the last 6 months. Take it for a spin and let me know what you think!

Disclosure: I am long GOOG, YHOO, and IACI (which owns Ask).

Future of Food: DRM is coming to farms and grocery stores near you

2007-07-08T15:37:00.001-07:00

This is a must see video about the agriculture-technology business, with some eye-opening facts: the company which develops Round Up (the miraculous herbicide anyone who's spent time in the garden knows and loves) also has genetically modified seeds and plants to be resistant to Round Up. That actually sounds really convenient! I can spray my whole garden and only the fruit-bearing plants will survive. (This is all fine and good unless this genetic resistance to herbicide ever crossed over to the weeds, poison ivy or some other undesirable plant.)

New genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have amazing new features as well. Take for example a new species of corn which has an insecticide built-in into the plant's genetic code. Now that sounds a little scary. I tend to prefer insecticides of the spray-on/wash-off variety.

Taking the "icky-ness" a little further: future plants will need a high-tech fertilizer which genetically activates a plant to bear fruit. This allows the agri-tech companies to sell fertilizers separate from the seeds so that farmers and gardeners cant keep their own seeds. They need to "subscribe" to the fertilizer business to stay in the food-growing business. And soon plants will have a 1-season suicide gene which will kill an entire crop unless the suicide gene is deactivated with the "genetic unlock code" present in that fertilizer.. Yikes! I am now even more concerned about the cross-over potential of that genetic code into other species.

Does this all cool use-management of food sound strangely familiar?? Yep, its Digital Rights Management (DRM) for the for the food industry!

Disclosure. I'm definitely not a foe of technology and innovation, but since we're talking about some engineering which could have enormously widespread ramifications if something went wrong, I'd love to know more about the food I eat. Is it too much to ask to get some labels on our food? There are so many instances when bugs and defects slip through "beta testing and Q/A" in a technology business, or when government bureaucrats get so overloaded that they overlook a harmful side effect. I'd like to know if my corn has a "terminator gene" built into it. And I'm sure those with a religious persuasion would like to know if the strawberries at the grocery store look extra nice because they've been introduced to the genetic code of shrimp or pork. Maybe I'd like to stick to organic vegetables for a few more decades to see what happens to our Fast Food Nation's children.

Patents on Life. A lot of this business is backed up a controversial Supreme Court decision (Diamond v. Chakrabarty) which allowed companies to patent organisms. Although I'm a capitalist and believer in property rights to incentivize creativity and investment, my karma will likely run over my dogma when patents can be issued on living organisms. How long is it before we will have to sign license agreements to breed with each other?? Or when our offspring becomes property of another because our son or daughter has a patented gene. My kids are definitely getting law degrees.

P2P vs. Hybrid cars

2007-05-17T22:56:00.000-07:00

Because of the dramatic reduction in servers and bandwidth required for distributing content with P2P technology, I recently made the claim that P2P technologies could be likened to hybrid cars and that BitTorrent is the Toyota Prius. Then I read this article about all of the externalities involved in manufacturing hybrid cars. Whoops! (?)... here are some statements and interesting data points:

"Toyota's Prius [is] a compact hybrid that's beloved by ardent environmentalists and that fetches premium prices because it gets nearly 50 miles-per-gallon in combined highway/city driving..."

"Released last December, [a] study tabulated all data on the energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a vehicle from drawing board to junkyard, including such items as plant-to-dealer fuel costs, distances driven, electricity usage per pound of material in each vehicle, and hundreds of other variables."

And because of the process to make the batteries required to run a hybrid: "The Prius registered an energy-cost average of $3.25 per mile driven over its expected life span of 100,000 miles. Ironically, a Hummer, the brooding giant that has become the bête noir of the green movement, did much better, with an energy-cost average of $1.95 over its expected life span of 300,000 miles."

Yikes! Maybe hybrids just provide the "feel good value" of 50 mpg. On the other hand, BitTorrent gives you all the good vibes *plus* dramatically better efficiency vs. centralized infrastructure.... to the tune of 60-90% reduction in the number of central servers needed to serve a video or software download!

On the History of BitTorrent Inc. on Beet.TV

2007-05-11T01:16:00.000-07:00

Na na na na... hey hey hey.... good bye (to DRM)

2007-04-03T01:05:00.000-07:00

EMI, one of the big four record labels, and publisher of some of my favorite bands (mostly on Capitol Records!) just made an industry-saving decision to ditch Digital Rights Management of its downloads.

My friends, this is the beginning of the end for DRM on purchased media.

Cui bono?
1. you (consumers)
2. you (artists), and
3. you (publishers: well, just EMI, for now)

Who loses?
1. Microsoft (whose product managers haven't seen a new DRM feature they don't like)
2. Publishers who don't get it (and probably write the Microsoft PRDs)
3. Artists who are represented by publishers who don't get it (and probably don't know what DRM is otherwise they'd insist in getting rid of it as well)

Thank you, Apple, for using your clout and leverage to enable a huge win for the business!

EMI to Offer Music on ITunes Without Software Curbs

By Alex Armitage and Mark Herlihy

April 2 (Bloomberg) -- EMI Group Plc, the world's third- largest music label, will sell songs without copyright protection software ...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=a0a2JWhg2IwA

Kadokawa + BitTorrent = First Japanese Download License in History

2007-03-13T23:42:00.001-07:00

Kadokawa + BitTorrent = First Japanese Download License in History, originally uploaded by ashwinnavin.

When we went to Japan and struck the licensing deal with Kadokawa, we knew it was an important event for BitTorrent Inc. But what most people don't realize is that the Japanese studios have never licensed films for online distribution *ever*. I am extremely honored that Kadokawa chose BitTorrent as their first partner for online distribution, and I am thrilled to be making history for the Japanese film industry.

The New BitTorrent.com Launches!

2007-02-25T17:13:00.000-08:00

Ashwin Navin, BitTorrent's co-founder and president, said [[the deals with Hollywood were]] a "true testament to the value of our community, technology and the position we aspire to play in the world of entertainment and content distribution."

"BitTorrent has fundamentally changed the Internet . . by enabling high-speed and high-quality content distribution on the web," said Mr Navin. "Today we have announced the role BitTorrent.com will play as a hub for consumers to enjoy their favourite entertainment, but we see a future that involves BitTorrent's content delivery platform powering thousands of websites, including those of content creators themselves."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/10e2522c-8018-11db-a3be-0000779e2340.html

Jobs nails DRM on the head!

2007-02-06T14:43:00.000-08:00

I've never been a fan of DRM, and I've criticized proponents/purveyors of the technology because they're holding the digital content industry back from mainstream adoption. Steve Jobs recently posted on Apple.com, some comments that I've been waiting to come from Apple for a long time, and he hits the nail on the head (I've cited some of it below).

We're facing the same issues @ BitTorrent and I say "Bravo!" to Steve for calling out the issue directly, thank you (!) and thank you Apple team for continuing to make great products! Lets get the publishers ready to succeed because their risk-aversion is not only holding their own industry back, its bolstering the value proposition of pirated content. We have to be loud and visible voices of reason for this industry to move forward.

Jobs: "In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system.

"So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies.

"Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly."

a strange brew

2006-12-07T19:29:00.000-08:00

this is why i love on-demand media... i'd never get to watch a couple of canadians duke it out over my company.

Congrats YouTube!

2006-10-16T22:16:00.000-07:00

I think google got a great value, but can't think of better exit for a great company. steve, please keep the buy-ins earthly!

Thoughts on DRM, and new website features for bittorrent.com

2006-09-23T18:47:00.000-07:00

So I'm typically the diplomatic guy on the BitTorrent team... but i could only bottle up our views on DRM for so long. The good news is that I'm not alone... i now know that a lot of people in the entertainment industry agree when we say: DRM is bad for artists, and its bad for consumers. Period.

DRM is great for the platform companies (Apple and Microsoft) that seek to lock consumers into their own respective worlds. In the meantime, consumers, artists, and delivery companies like us are held hostage....

My friends, dont fret! we're at the dawn of an entirely new product cycle that will be tens of billions of dollars in size. It already *is* tens of billions of dollars in size offline, and as the channel of distribution shifts online, the key stakeholders are going to be very cautious at the beginning. There will be a day however when entertainment executives will see DRM as a risk to their business... more people are getting tired of lugging around their CD and DVD collections, especially when their entire collection fits easily on a laptop. The entertainment industry is also one that fears lock-in even more than we do (as consumers). When platform companies exert their distribution control on content compies, the walls for lock-in (ie, DRM) will fall over like a bunch of Jim Jones followers drinking their last glass of bittersweet kool-aid.

More to read here, and a podcast here.

I'm also extremely pleased with our new site at bittorrent.com. We're forging relationships with all kinds of artists -- mainstream and indie. For you indie music fans, check out the Torrent page for SubPopRecords... here. Also an exclusive *no DRM* EPK from death cab for cutie.

BT China

2006-06-29T23:22:00.000-07:00

When I was in Cannes for the Film Festival, Vivienne Chow from the South China Morning Post did a piece on BT's plans for China as well as podcast:

BitTorrent plans legal Chinese film service

Vivienne Chow talks with Ashwin Navin of BitTorrent, who discusses the company’s plans for the popular file-sharing technology in China. (podcast) (article).

BitTorrent.com soon to be a destination for downloading Batman, Ocean's 11, and Smallville.. Legally!

2006-05-09T01:14:00.000-07:00

Friends, I'm thrilled to announce BitTorrent's partnership with Warner Brothers, the world's largest movie studio. This new arrangement provides us the license to sell Warner's hit movies and TV shows at BitTorrent.com!

BitTorrent at Tribeca 06

2006-05-02T15:16:00.000-07:00

BitTorrent had a nice bit of exposure at the Tribeca Film Festival yesterday, a high point on a personal level, because Steven Soderbergh, one of my favorite filmmakers, (probably under a bit of pressure from panel moderator Georg Szalai of the Hollywood Reporter), publicly announced our work to release a series of Soderbergh's HD shortfilms online at bittorrent.com!

Details were covered by indieWIRE...

Publishing HD Video has never been easier, as part of BitTorrent's new publishing suite coming this summer!

[[PS: Here's Steven's page at BitTorrent:
http://www.bittorrent.com/users/stevensoderbergh/]]

Add Torrent search to your site!

2006-03-11T16:22:00.000-08:00

To add torrent search to your site.. click here!

Search for Torrent Files

'Throttling' Angers Netflix Heavy Renters

2006-02-11T13:28:00.000-08:00

The AP article (http://linkwrap.com/4058) relates how Netflix is metering heavy users of the "all-you-can-eat" movie service. Yet another reason why illegitimate distribution of video continues to soar -- until the legit options provide a better experience than the other option (ie, "piracy"), consumers will continue to take the path of least resistance to get what they want, when they want it, in the most useful format (which is non-DRM'd).

The term "throttling" has reared its head in the BitTorrent world lately as well at Rogers Cable.. http://linkwrap.com/4059 The truth is, almost every ISP is over-subscribed (meaning the aggregate capacity of what they've sold consumers as broadband far exceeds the capacity in their core networks).

This is particularly true because networks were designed 10 years ago, when data traffic exhibited 10x more downstream traffic (ie, downloads) than upload traffic. Makes sense... but then along comes BitTorrent with a tit-for-tat algorithm that gave people a reason to use their upload capacity, and lo and behold, BitTorrent exceeds 50% of the data traffic in the world.

Unfortunately ISPs have to make some hard decisions about how to cope with P2P traffic costs -- Rogers Cable is clearly taking the anti-consumer approach. If you're in Canada, you should consider switching to Bell Canada's DSL service.

ISPs: There is another approach! Take for example the cableco NTL, which after its merger with Telewest will be the largest broadband ISP in the UK.

While Rogers tells users "You can't use broadband for the reason you paid for it!" NTL is saying: "Go for it! We will improve our network to enhance the downloading experience AND with BitTorrent Inc., provide legal content to download" see this: http://linkwrap.com/4060

When ISPs implement caching, it significantly reduces the cost of carrying P2P traffic and does so in a way that is completely compliant with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_cache
http://linkwrap.com/4082

Most importantly, it allows consumers to use and take full advantage of exactly what they want to do with their broadband subscription! Don't take this as demand for network neutrality, which clearly may be cost-prohibitive.. take this a humble suggestion for how best invest and renew data networks which were designed in a different age.

BitTorrent and the Motion Picture Association make historic announcement

2005-11-24T02:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we were in LA to announce a relationship with the movie industry we've been fostering for several months. The upshot is that BitTorrent is an extraordinary tool -- perhaps the best tool to distribute licensed movies and TV shows on the Internet. To deliver a movie, Bittorrent is cheaper and faster than the post office, and thanks to high gas prices, probably cheaper than your SUV, too.

Because our tool is a great one, it gets used in all kinds of ways some of which we're extremely proud of (if you take a look through this blog, you'll see many), and some of which we're not so proud of. Our agreement with the MPAA announced yesterday is an indication of joint intent to make BitTorrent.com a safe, secure place to consume using BitTorrent; and ultimately a lucrative forum for the film & TV industry to start engaging with the global BitTorrent community.

We look forward to bringing the world a whole host of downloadable entertainment options at BitTorrent.com...

Here's the LA Times write up, which was particularly good:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-torrent23nov23,1,4489847.story

Eisner encourages industry to embrace BitTorrent

2005-10-01T20:23:00.000-07:00

"As you look at the current entertainment landscape, don't panic over the latest techno-jargon, such as peer-to-peer, WiMax, 802.11, BitTorrent, 3G, Internet 2.0, podcasting or DVR," said Eisner, who exits his post Friday. "Rather, embrace them, knowing that the only thing that gives purpose to all these remarkable delivery systems is the kind of creative content that we produce."

Bravo! Mr. Eisner, we are in 100% agreement. BitTorrent was designed to empower the content creator, and gives the content industry even better ways to publish electronically. Tearing down the limitations of even the newest communications medium, BitTorrent enables your Web pages to present the widest range of entertainment options consumers have ever seen.

Eisner also adds that content isn't actually king, as the saying goes, but that it's more of a "steadfast queen, the true power behind the throne, who loyally serves whatever king currently holds the distribution scepter."

Read more here.

BitTorrent powering the Italian independent media

2005-09-10T01:20:00.000-07:00

I just returned from the Prix Ars Electronica 2005 gala in Linz, Austria where BitTorrent won a special prize for empowering the Digital Communities around the world. Another award recipient was an entity called Telestreet in Italy, an example of one of these Digital Communities empowered by BitTorrent.

Telestreet (and its digital archive at New Global Vision) are initiatives that are offering independent alternatives to the monopoly position of the video broadcasters in Italy. Telestreet/NGV has established "street TV stations" on a relatively limited budget using BitTorrent downloads of video content. In Italy, 250 mini-stations have already been set up in this way, each of which is operated by a staff of 10-15 persons.

This is another great example of how BitTorrent allows grass-roots content to emerge which would have no other viable distributor, and certainly not one which a significant number of viewers would find ideologically compatible.

P2P Shifting Away From BitTorrent

2005-09-01T20:14:00.000-07:00

Article from Web Pro News covering piracy traffic moving away from BitTorrent..

"eDonkey and other P2P networks can have the entire piracy market because we're not interested in it at all," BitTorrent's COO Ashwin Navin said.

.. and its true. Publish responsibly.

CacheLogic P2P Traffic Stats

2005-08-10T18:03:00.000-07:00

CacheLogic Reports on P2P traffic composition. A few data points in this analysis:

"Overall Mix of Peer-to-Peer traffic by volume:
Audio: 11.34%
Video: 61.44%
Other: 27.22%"

Cachelogic reports: "Microsoft video formats represent 46% of aggregate worldwide Peer-to-Peer traffic." What?? Microsoft is party to movies traded on P2P networks?? (i'm being cheeky)

Also, "65% of all audio files by volume of traffic are still traded in the MP3 format, but a surprising 12.3% are in the open-source OGG file format (almost all exclusively traded on the BitTorrent network, particularly in Asia)."

Cachelogic... you guys know that there is no such thing as a BitTorrent network. Please see this post.

I love this gem: "BitTorrent is increasingly being used for the distribution of legitimate content. eDonkey is now the network of choice for video file trading."

Some folks seem to be surprised by this, but we've been saying it all along: BitTorrent was designed for people with popular content. It is inherently a bad tool for piracy, but it *is* an extremely elegant tool to make great content available on the web.

Yahoo! says "Open Sesame!"

2005-08-07T23:24:00.000-07:00

Yahoo! in Talks to Acquire Stake in Alibaba:

Congrats to the team at Yahoo! If this deal transpires, Yahoo! gets a piece of the preeminent online commerce play in China. According to Forbes, Yahoo! is in talks to purchase 35% for almost $1 billion. Alibaba operates Taobao.com, the leading online auction site, and Alibaba.com, a kickass B2B import/export marketplace. Both of these businesses have leading positions in the most exciting emerging market in the world.

This deal implies Alibaba's valuation is $3 billion. Add a control premium, and the takeout value is say $4 billion. Thats a bargain relative to Baidu which now trades at $3.6 billion on only $13 million of revenue in 2004! I'm a huge fan of this trade, and glad to be a YHOO shareholder. (I'm a GOOG shareholder too, how come that BIDU pop didnt get priced in Friday??)

Nice BitTorrent write up in the Merc today

2005-08-02T00:20:00.000-07:00

Great piece by Dawn Chmielewski in the San Jose Mercury News.. which was syndicated in newspapers and websites across the country..

Dawn writes, "any examination of BitTorrent's potential needs to start with an understanding of how it differs from other file-swapping technologies. BitTorrent breaks giant files into tiny bits and spreads the distribution load among dozens or hundreds of computer users. It's built on the notion of cooperative distribution -- to get pieces of the file you lack, you must offer up chunks in exchange."

I'll offer a little further detail on this point because we do hear quite a few misconceptions. BitTorrent is a server-to-client distribution technology, similar to the web (HTTP). It is *not* a P2P network which indexes people's hard drives and makes their files available. There is centralization in a BitTorrent deployment because the download originates from a website. The elegance is what takes place after you kick-off a download... which was what Dawn is referring to when she talks about breaking files up and spreading the hosting costs around to other downloaders. She also offers up a couple of good examples:

"BitTorrent dramatically improves the economics of the Internet as a broadcast medium. With distribution costs removed, budding filmmakers like Ben Buie of HighlyDef Productions in Altanta can suddenly afford to release ``On Our Way Up,'' a full-length docudrama, based on the lives of three brothers, shot in high-definition video."

Also this one:

"Linspire, a San Diego software developer, uses BitTorrent to distribute its Linux-based software, including its recently released Linspire Five-0 operating system. BitTorrent saves Linspire about $20,000 a month, a company spokeswoman said."

Mobile device vigilanteism

2005-07-02T16:39:00.000-07:00

I've been intrigued for some time about how "Big Brother" may soon come in the form of "little brothers." That is, with everyone soon carrying mobile devices that capture sound, video, and high resolution stills, the Neighborhood Watch system just got a seriously powerful shot in the arm. And I'm not talking about snapping pictures of shady operators casing your 'hood. I think citizens can put retailers, their policemen, their teachers, road ragers and drunk drivers, their babysitters, and whomever publicly misbehaves, on notice. We're now potentially more accountable to our fellow man than ever before, and it came full-circle: we once lived in small towns and communities that whispered a lot, then we moved to the big city to get away and "get our freedom", and now that perceived anonymity could soon be gone!

If I had a little extra time and money, I would love to start an entity to enable broad indexing capabilities of data captured on mobiles. To date, its been kinda haphazard... moblogs aren't terribly interesting or empowering for publishers or their viewers. But what if i could send "vigilante.org" a picture of a road-rager who just cut-off a poor old lady in her Chevy Nova. Wait a sec, this guy has been snapped 2-3 times a day for the last year.. his plate number is publicly available on "vigilante.org" for everyone to see.. Hmm, wonder what his insurance company will bill for his next year of coverage?

"Vigilante.org" could make an overlay mapping service that indicates all kinds of fun things about your area.. like traffic, late night activity, ohhh.. what about the cell-strength for every mobile phone company in a particular area? If my phone can send to some central index how many bars of signal there is wherever I and everyone else on T-Mobile goes, I probably would have gone with Verizon or something. Thankfully we're not only able to put John Doe on notice, we can put our service providers and businesses on notice too! The BBB should be all over this!

And on a ligher-note, worldwide scavenger hunts would be fun. It could be a global 3D game where users offer points (or cash??) to people who can capture items on their "wish list" of things to capture on camera. yikes! everyone joins the paparazzi! i love jonathan strauss' project: http://hollywoodwalkofshame.net/.. looking forward to seeing it develop over the coming months.

Sun Microsystems embraces BitTorrent

2005-07-02T16:26:00.000-07:00

Sun embraces BitTorrent for Solaris distros... brilliant platform choice guys!

http://dlc.sun.com/torrents/

When robust, open tools like BitTorrent exist, that makes the closed/low-performance/high-priced alternatives look awfully pale (eventhough detuned 501-c-3s seem to be getting awfully popular in the valley, it's only a matter of time before the IRS takes a whack at these shenanigans).

John Dvorak, "The Scheme to Discredit BitTorrent"

2005-06-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

Thanks John. Every once in a while it takes a luminary to set the media straight.

check this out:
The Scheme to Discredit BitTorrent

iTunes more popular than Kazaa

2005-06-11T13:42:00.000-07:00

Macworld UK - iTunes more popular than Kazaa: "
Apple's iTunes Music Store has taken on peer-to-peer file sharing sites where music can be illegally downloaded for free, and won"

if you give users a good experience online at a reasonable price they will pay. itunes is a great example, or even the games we're publishing with bittorrent.. you play a few levels for free, if you like it, then you pay for the rest of the game.. paying exorbitant prices for a bundle of tracks with a hit song burried in there is an antiquated business model.

walmart china stocks porn?

2005-06-09T18:44:00.000-07:00

porn aisle at walmart china
Originally uploaded by ashwinnavin.

When i was travelling in China last month, I was amazed to find my favorite store for "Everyday low prices" right smack dab in the middle of an entire country with everyday low prices everywhere! in fact, isn't everything in walmart US made in china?? its the reason we go there, to stretch our pocket books further.. but why do the chinese go there? i think its for the convenience of everything under 1 roof which wasnt that common prior to walmarts entry in the china market.

While wandering down the isles of this megastore, i was curious about the retail price of Hollywood movies and music -- especially since the same titles are available literally one block outside the door for $1 on the street (pirated of course). to my surprise, i discovered a wall of porn! not segmented by curtains or velvet ropes, but literally right above the children's movies... isn't this the same retailer that makes american magazine publishers change its covers to get shelf space in america's favorite family store??

Sid Meier's Civilization III: Available for Download with BitTorrent

2005-06-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

Trygames.com Sid Meier's Civilization III

BitTorrent has officially rolled out several more video game downloads, including Civ3, and also SWAT4 from Vivendi Universal Games

BitTorrent moves further into the mainstream

2005-05-30T19:04:00.000-07:00

BitTorrent moves further into the mainstream: "Blizzard is using BitTorrent as well for its World of Warcraft beta test."

World of Warcraft is a real blockbuster. I am thrilled that BitTorrent was able to facilitate the distribution.. Vivendi Universal has announced that in the five months since it was launched, the number of World of Warcraft subscribers has reached 1.5 million. In China alone, more than 500,000 users have signed up since it started beta testing to the public earlier this year.

Although folks spend most of their time thinking about movie and music distribution (for good reason because they're the biggest in revenue terms).. Games and software are extremely compelling categories for digital distribution with BitTorrent because the formats and platforms have always been digital. We look forward to rolling out more titles in the near future with game developers and publishers.

15-year old journalist nails it

2005-05-29T13:40:00.000-07:00

WorldNetDaily: The film industry: Technologically challenged

Interesting piece by conservative Republican Kyle Williams in WorldNetDaily. He is a 15 year old journalist living in a rural community in Oklahoma I believe. His article leads me to believe that there's definitely a knowledge gap in America between the young and old driven by the rate of technology change. Kyle makes some salient distinctions that indicate he has a more sophisticated understanding of the media industry than a lot of grey-haired lawmakers on both sides of the isle.

People of all political inclinations should be ecstatic that tools like BitTorrent exist because it puts in the hands of every American the tools to be your own radio station or movie studio -- just like blogs made you an independent journalist. Whether you think mainstream media is biased (the conservative view), or you think consolidation in big media is driving away independent thought (the liberal view), BitTorrent is all about Free Speech and individual empowerment which puts the value of analog media distribution in question.

search market share

2005-05-06T15:42:00.000-07:00

Looking at the referral logs www.bittorrent.com, I am fascinated that with all the recent headway Yahoo! has made in search product announcements it appears that our users are still becoming heavier Googlers.

Search Engine	March	April	May
Google	75.0 %	79.6 %	79.7 %
Yahoo!	20.7 %	16.4 %	15.1 %
MSN	1.7 %	1.6 %	3 %
AltaVista	0.5 %	0.5 %	0.5 %
Sina	0.1 %	0.1 %	0.1 %
Others	2.0 %	1.8 %	1.6 %

I'm surprised to see AOL and AskJeeves missing from the list. I am assuming that our overlap with their users is very minimal. I am glad to see Sina in the top 5 however, because we love China, and China loves BitTorrent.

You may be wondering if this data is worth anything.. so am I... Bear in mind that bittorrent's demographics are probably heavily weighted towards males 18-40, and are probably early adopters of technology -- this is a bad demo to extrapolate to the web generally. We see about 5 million unique visitors to the site monthly (even though there's nothing more than our client download and FAQ on the site).

BitTorrent downloads of Biblical proportions

2005-05-04T15:47:00.000-07:00

We recently got some mail sent to our bug reports address by an angry songwriter who seems to think BitTorrent is something that its not. He writes:

From: Craig Wiseman
Hey-
I notice you are selling t-shirts to make money.
I wonderhow many t-shirts you would sell if people
had the optionof downloading them for free???
Pretty scary huh? My baby is just as cute as yours
and I have to feed her being a professional songwriter.
Enjoyselling your shirts- It's costing me mine.
Craig Wiseman
Nashville

Craig's mail is indicative of a huge misconception. Although he thinks BitTorrent is the source of his problems, he's really attacking the Internet itself -- if bandwidth and servers were free, would BitTorrent need to exist? Probably not. Would Craig be even more angry and pissed off? I believe he would.

I believe Craig is an extremely successful writer for the Country Western genre which often includes a religious foundation in its artistic expression. I recently stumbled on a great site called Living Torrents which offers audio and video downloads of Christian content. Yet another example of things that would be too expensive to be made available without BitTorrent. Craig, if your fans don't want to pay for your songs, what does that say about the price you're charging? Or should we stop creating electronic publishing technology like BitTorrent assuming that your songs are worth more than the Bible and Christian teachings also made available because of it?

BitTorrent is the ultimate tool for publishers and creators of content.

If you've built your success on market and distribution inefficiencies, don't expect to be happy as technology improves. If you refuse to create CDs as the market shifted away from cassettes, where would your business be today?

On the web, typically more popularity means more costs (in the way of bandwidth and servers). But with BT, your principal source of pain (ie, demand spikes and flash crowds) becomes your source of strength. BT allows good content to flourish on the web rather than be crushed by problems of scalability.

Traditional distributors of content -- be it game publishers, record labels, movie studios, etc -- can harness BitTorrent, but their thinking has to evolve from their analog heritage. If you have great content that people want, there's now a way to make it available. There's a treasure trove of content in the back catalog that never sees the light of day because of limited shelf space at Walmart or BestBuy. If these folks put their stuff on the web with BitTorrent, it would be a very economical way for them to distribute and monetize content thats now collecting dust.

Greetings from Asia

2005-04-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

i just spent a little over a week in china where it dawned on me that i take my blog for granted. i couldnt access any blogs hosted by blogspot, nor could i post while i was there! value that free speech folks.. expression ain't guaranteed even today. i'm in india now, where people are super eager to express their opinions (and have been for many years), although i think blogging has yet to take hold here like it has in east asia. maybe there's pent up demand in places where expression is stifled by either statutory or cultural barriers.

in india, i'm amused by how often i find "customer satisfaction" forms and surveys in the most random places... restaurants, hotels sure.. but in airports and trains? and people actually fill them out vigorously! the state of online yellow pages is terrible here though, someone should harness people's desire to provide feedback to build a killer local property (although 3% online penetration means that mobile/SMS-based submission may be more feasible).

bittorrent is kicking ass in china. the protocol is responsible for roughly 70% of the internet traffic there. hard to say what exactly people are using it for, although i'm told that educational content is a huge and growing category. teachers are making multimedia lesson plans and looking for cost effective ways to distribute around the country. Torrents are found frequently on school "BBS" sites.. fascinating stuff. some large portals and gaming sites are also deploying "download.com" type sites all based on bittorrent. do a baidu search for "bittorrent".

i'm dying to blog about this funny experience i had in china.. all you walmart haters out there are gonna love it.. as soon as i get my picasa/hello or flickr running here, i'll post. stay tuned.

Blair Witch Creator Demonstrates "Future of Filmmaking"

2005-04-13T18:47:00.000-07:00

Daniel Myrick, creator and co-director of "The Blair Witch Project," will demonstrate the future of filmmaking at NAB 2005 in Las Vegas by showing how Myrick's latest project, "The Strand," can be distributed using BitTorrent downloads...

check it out: http://www.strandvenice.com

NASA using bittorrent for World Wind project

2005-04-07T15:39:00.000-07:00

NASA World Wind lets a you use NASA satellite images to zoom into any place on Earth. Leveraging Landsat satellite imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, World Wind lets you experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D... totally cool stuff, not unlike Keyhole the company that Google bought for some undisclosed amount.

NASA, a government organization without Google's deep pockets, opted to save tax payers' money and use BitTorrent for the download.. here's the torrent:
http://65.75.164.200/World_Wind_1.3_Full.exe.torrent

here's the site:
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/download.html

Enjoy!

my take on Yahoo 360

2005-04-05T01:00:00.000-07:00

Washington Post: Early Version Of Yahoo 360 Confusing All Around

my verdict on 360: better late than never

i've heard several people debate whether yahoo 360 sucks or not.... i think they're missing the point. yahoo 360 needs to exist. and it really should not be measured by how revolutionary it is. its evolutionary... its what yahoo profiles and member directory should have become 12-18 months ago, but better late than never. in fact, never is not an option for a company like yahoo.

overall i think yahoo 360 is a good service .. beats the heck out of orkut... and will probably be the right tool to retain yahoo's high-value die-hards who actually contribute back to the network via ratings and reviews. better to keep them on yahoo rather than networking elsewhere and contributing to some other blogspace.

Fiona Apple Is Cookin' on the Net

2005-03-22T02:33:00.000-08:00

Wired News: Fiona Apple Is Cookin' on the Net: "Songs from Fiona Apple's latest album are widely available on the internet and are being played on the radio, but much to the chagrin of fans, the album can't be bought for love or money.
Apple apparently finished Extraordinary Machine in 2003 but it was never released by her record label, Epic Records. (Epic is a subsidiary of Sony BMG Music Entertainment)."

A publisher should never have to overthink the "cost of distribution"... clearly where any demand exists, a distribution model should be available to meet that demand. Digital distribution with BitTorrent is the answer to the content industry's back catalog and niche material. Put that stuff out there!

Linspire via BitTorrent distribution

2005-03-11T11:27:00.000-08:00

A great example of how software publishers are harnessing the bittorrent effect.. in this case, Linspire slashes prices by 50% to encourage use of P2P instead of their Http/Ftp servers. See below

Linspire via P2P distribution: "You can now get the Linspire operating system - including a complete office suite - for just $25 and at the same time, experience the power of the latest peer-to-peer (P2P) technology - BitTorrent. This is a savings of 50% and using P2P means your download can start immediately at great speeds. You'll be tapping the newest P2P technology to download the easiest desktop Linux product!

To take advantage of this special offer, simply order Linspire via P2P now. Then you'll want to make sure you have BitTorrent installed. If you don't have it installed, don't worry because it's easy and free and we'll show you how with step-by-step instructions. There's no spyware or nagware - in fact, there's security built into BitTorrent to make sure you get exactly what you want!

Don't miss this limited-time offer to try Linspire for just $25, a 50% savings!"

Download the South by Southwest music festival!

2005-03-09T02:34:00.000-08:00

thanks to the south by southwest festival for allowing the world to enjoy the music via BitTorrent. Great (mostly independent) music from the festival is economically distributed over the web, thanks to the BitTorrent protocol.

The importance of a mission

2005-02-26T19:39:00.000-08:00

Forbes Magazine Article: "Yin Yang, Big Bang"

Rich Karlgaard writes: "Google and Wal-Mart have become huge successes in vastly different ways. But the yin and yang have this in common:

• Each company has a simple mission. Wal-Mart's is "always low prices." Google's is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." These companies know who they are

• The brand and the mission statement of each are aligned. Picture Google and Wal-Mart in your head. There's no confusion about what these companies do.

• Each company's offerings are dirt-simple to use. Shopping at Wal-Mart does not take a heroic intellectual effort. But neither does using Google, even though the search engine behind the curtain is the product of a prodigious intellectual feat...."

• Both companies are technology leaders. The previous editor of FORBES, Jim Michaels, likes to call Wal-Mart the world's preeminent tech company. It pioneered the use of bar-code scanners, slick supply chains and inventory management tweaked to local purchasing preferences. The Bentonville, Ark. giant never sleeps. Now Wal-Mart is pushing into RFID chips. Wal-Mart's aggressive use of technology puts the lie to a recent Harvard Business Review article, "IT Doesn't Matter," that says it's okay to sit back and let others lead. Google, meanwhile, continues to attract the best tech brains in Silicon Valley.

• Both companies exploit the cheap revolution. Google's search engine runs on 100,000 cheap servers and a form of free Linux software. Wal-Mart searches the planet for low-cost production. It buys 10% of the goods China exports to the U.S. "

I've always been a fan of anchoring a company, division, group, or even my life to a mission statement. One should know if a single action takes him closer or father from that mission. Jeff Weiner taught me this when he was running Corpdev at Yahoo! Now he's running Search and I think data suggests he's doing a great job. I'm pretty sure he still spends a good chunk of time thinking about strategic direction as much as he does day-to-day tactical matters.

What's your mission?

BitTorrent gets a new look.. and a cool new feature for users!

2005-02-10T01:33:00.000-08:00

The Official BitTorrent page gets a new look! Woohoo!

BitTorrent is changing the shape of the Web as we know it

2005-01-30T14:00:00.000-08:00

I am excited to be working with Bram Cohen, and here's why...

When someone creates digital content (video, audio, software, etc) and wants to offer it online, they throw it on a webserver and promote it to get discovered. Search engines make the "getting discovered" part easier every day, and tools like Google's and Yahoo's Video Search make the world of digital video more accessible.

There's a major problem that arises however. As the content gets more popular, the publisher pays more for bandwidth and performance falls because of server strain. Distribution costs kill good content before a content industry has a chance to find and commercialize it. Thousands of examples demonstrate that creators are still forced to "sell out" to traditional distributors who take exorbitant cuts to get content on the retail shelves.

Consider the book "Real World Adobe GoLive 6'' by Glenn Fleishman. When he made his book available as a free PDF download last year, the book had 10,000 downloads, representing nearly 250 gigabytes of data transferred in the first 36 hours. After seeing a $15,000 bandwidth overage charge from his ISP, he's wondering if digital distribution was such a good idea.

Enter BitTorrent. BitTorrent turns the problem of digital distribution on its head. With BitTorrent, when content rises in popularity, its download performance improves, and the cost to distribute falls! Any creator or owner of desirable content -- be it John's garage band or Disney's movie studios -- can make content available with outstanding download performance at virtually no digital distribution costs.

Don't mistake BitTorrent for P2P networks like Kazaa and Napster. BitTorrent is a protocol (not a network) that anyone with a webserver can implement for free in order to create their own network. When Disney, for example, wants to distribute a file, they essentially create their own private P2P network which only consists of whoever is downloading the desired file simultaneously. Yes, BitTorrent uses unused P2P resources (namely, unused upstream bandwidth and hard disk space)... but its the publisher who has elected to create the P2P network for that piece of content. In a P2P network, users literally elect submit their hard drive for indexing in exchange for access to other people's harddrives. P2P networks lend themselves to piracy. BitTorrent does not.

Thousands of creators, publishers and distributors have embraced BitTorrent to solve their problems. Because of the tracker server they must operate, BitTorrent offers them centralization, visibility, and manageability that does not lend well to piracy. Many tracker servers check to ensure that a downloader is a registered user or subscriber. Also, if a tracker removes the file information or is shut down, the file is no longer available for download.

BitTorrent is inherently not conducive to piracy because someone doing illegal stuff with it is completely exposed. Copyright holders have shutdown many infringing uses of our technology and we're happy about that.

Another key advantage of BitTorrent vs. traditional P2P networks is the integrity of content. When a user goes to Disney.com to initiate a download, he is receiving from other users pieces of a known file whose integrity is known to the tracker. Therefore it is not possible to infect a piece of the file being shared unlike most P2P networks, which are ridden with virus-infected files masked with desirable names like "Eminem.mp3" for example.

Great, *legal* content provided via BitTorrent pops up everyday. Here are some examples:

* Firefox -- Mozilla's popular new browser -- is provided via BitTorrent. (http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/1.0/win32/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%201.0.exe.torrent)

* Consider the community at Etree.org. Music fans distribute the music of bands that allow the audio taping of their live performances for non-commercial use. The Etree site lists over 100 bands or musicians who have policies that allow and encourage fans to tape and trade their performances, including major artists such as the Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, and Tenacious D. BitTorrent is now the solution for them.

* Linux distributions use BitTorrent widely to distribute new versions of CD images. When Mandrake Linux operating system version 9.2 was released, the Mandrake Linux company knew they had a problem - they have a popular, free product and the download is quite large, around 2 gigabytes. With thousands of users clamoring to download the new version on release day, the bandwidth costs to the company would be prohibitive. They solved the problem by making the download available through BitTorrent.

* File Rush is growing in popularity among gamers because of the selection of game demos available over the BitTorrent protocol making highly desirable files available at speeds superior to others online game distributors.

* Torrentocracy provides videos of the U.S. presidential debates and other political materials and was extremely popular during the recent US elections.

* File Soup offers open-source software and freeware, music from artists whose labels don't belong to the Recording Industry Association of America trade group, and programs from public television stations like PBS or the BBC.

More and more indexes of cool, interesting, and legal content pop up everyday -- and at the same time, copyright holders are also doing a good job of policing the infringing indexes. The end result is that good (non-infringing) content will continue to proliferate across the Internet.

BitTorrent receives requests everyday from traditional distributors and publishers seeking to better understand the technology and how it can help their business. We can eliminate their digital distribution costs with the flip of a switch, improving their margins and customer satisfaction.

We look forward to working with content distributors in coming months, but we take great pride in the thousands of early adopters -- independent creators and niche aggregators -- who now have the tool to distribute content economically on their own. They embrace BitTorrent, evangelize it, and give the protocol staying-power which is changing the face of the Web as we know it.

Economist: China Loses Faith in Dollar

2005-01-26T17:13:00.000-08:00

Economist: China Loses Faith in Dollar: "China Has Lost Faith in Stability of U.S. Dollar, Top Chinese Economist Says at World Forum "

Get your money in renminbi!

Broadcatching

2004-11-01T19:15:00.000-08:00

BitTorrent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Broadcatching" — Where BitTorrent meets RSS
Another proposed feature combines RSS and BitTorrent to create the perfect content delivery system, dubbed broadcatching. Since a Steve Gillmor column for Ziff-Davis in December 2003, the discussion has spread quickly among many bloggers (Techdirt, Ernest Miller, and ex-Tech TV host Chris Pirillo, for example). However it's Scott Raymond whose entry best explains what has everyone excited:

"I want RSS feeds of BitTorrent files. A script would periodically check the feed for new items, and use them to start the download. Then, I could find a trusted publisher of an Alias RSS feed, and 'subscribe' to all new episodes of the show, which would then start downloading automatically — like the 'season pass' feature of the TiVo."
While potential illegal uses abound as is the case with any new distribution method, this idea lends itself to a great number of ideas that could turn traditional distribution models on their heads, giving smaller operations a new opportunity for content distribution. Similar to Lindows, the system leans on the cost-saving benefit of BitTorrent, where expenses are virtually non-existent; each downloader of a file participates in a portion of the distribution.

RSS feeds layered on top keep track of the content, and because BitTorrent does cryptographic hashing of all data, subscribers to the feed can be sure they're getting what they think they're getting, whether that winds up being the latest Sopranos episode, or the latest Sveasoft firmware upgrade.

Despite ample discussion, one of the first practical applications of this idea has only surfaced recently. Programmer Andrew Grumet has announced the release of a beta version of an RSS and BitTorrent integration tool for Radio Userland's news aggregator, available here (http://www.grumet.net/weblog/).

Another solution exists here: TV RSS (http://tvtrss.sourceforge.net/)

Also adding that anime fansub communities often use Bittorrent for their releases and the most popular announce sites like animesuki, Tokyo Toshokan (http://www.tokyotosho.com/)and downloadanime.org have RSS feeds.

Azureus has also an RSS feedreader plug-in which can be used in conjunction with the sites mentioned above.

Podcasting is starting to integrate BitTorrent to help podcasters deal with the download demands of their MP3 "radio" programs. Specifically, iPodder (http://ipodder.sourceforge.net/) supports BitTorrent for the RSS 2.0 enclosures that power podcasting.

BitTorrent and RSS Create Disruptive Revolution

2004-10-28T15:33:00.000-07:00

BitTorrent and RSS Create Disruptive Revolution

Where RSS falls short (ie for media types other than text and images) torrent picks up (for media types which are not as cheap to distribute).

Finally, upstart content creators dont have to break their backs on bandwidth costs. And sharing among your blogring can take place quickly and securely.

This is disruptive stuff baby!

Weekend tech reading

2004-08-13T20:41:00.000-07:00

Some great articles for a little weekend tech catch-up:
Does Samsung have what it takes to overtake Intel?
Microsoft vs Open Source
Apple iPod Chip Provider PortalPlayer Files IPO
Copper Market To Grow 63% in 2004
Industry Teams Formed For Huge Air Force Net Contract
IBM Ups Hiring Forecast
Companies Reluctant To Invest Heavily Just Yet
An Online Supplier For Your Desktop Cineplex
Google Says Playboy Story May Violate S.E.C. Rules
Kyocera To Make Photovoltaic Cells In North America
Home Networking to Skyrocket
FBI Wants To Eavesdrop On Fiber Links

The Smartest Man In Europe Is Bullish on Asia (Byron Wien)

2004-07-30T23:58:00.000-07:00

I feel like I've been articulating this for a long time, but finally someone with much greater credentials, more grey hair, and of course a larger mouthpiece is singing a tune I can dance to!

Tech Central Station - The Smartest Man In Europe Is Bullish on Asia:

"The gap is growing between the energetic economies of Asia -- notably China, India and the Tigers of Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand -- and the mature, complacent economies of the West, and I am not exactly sure what that means for investors."

"The problems in Europe are well known," says TSMIE. "The population is aging, the economy is mature. . . . People put living the good life ahead of working hard." He goes on, "The American bloc isn't much better. . . . The U.S. has grown soft. No politician can propose anything that involves sacrifice. . . . Your manufactured products are uncompetitive, and you don't provide the necessary incentives to expand the knowledge-based industries where you have an advantage.

"The increasing cost of health care and retirement benefits will be a drag on U.S. profitability and will discourage investment. Litigation costs are a terrible drag." TSMIE concedes that, as the dollar declines, U.S. products will become more competitive. He also respects our lead in biotechnology and nanotechnology, but he concludes, "The Western countries, including the U.S., have to face up to the fact that their standard of living will decline."

"Both China and India have an educated population willing to work very hard for modest wages. Every year, China moves further along the curve of manufacturing sophistication. . . . Asian countries provide few health care benefits, and there is no plaintiff's bar. . . . It is a free-wheeling business atmosphere, much as I imagine America was in the days of the Wild West."

"Measured by "purchasing power parity" -- that is, the buying power of local currency -- China is the second-largest economy in the world after the United States, and India is fourth, ahead of Germany, France and Britain."

3G Today

2004-07-24T02:42:00.000-07:00

3G Today - Operators

Solid site with great perspective on global rollouts of 2.5G and 3G networks .. with a comprehensive device information and technology updates. The content has a Qualcomm bias but since I've been a proud QCOM shareholder since 1998, I'm not complaining! And yes I did watch my shares soar to several hundred bucks each and plummet and now recover... what fun! the story why I'll continue to hold can be summed up in this graph...

Supply-side in Europe? Impossible!

2004-07-18T02:48:00.000-07:00

Around the World in 80 Days

"Europe. Any hope? Yes, actually. The U.K. is growing at a 3% rate, and Ireland's a land afire. To the east, Poland and Russia have put in supply-side tax reforms. Even the French have eased tax and regulatory burdens for startups. The government hopes French hearts and minds will follow. Wish 'em luck. Today 70% of French university students say their dream job is to work for … the civil service. Germany is the sick man of Europe, unter alles on business starts. No mystery here. German entrepreneurs must submit their plans to the government and wait--past one Oktoberfest, then another--for an average of 18 months while Berlin decides whether the baby should live."

"But let's return to happier news. No story is more inspiring than Ireland's. As recently as 1987 Ireland suffered 18% unemployment. The country's GDP per capita was then two-thirds of England's. Desperate, Ireland cut income tax rates by 15% and courted technology companies. The results would surprise only a New York Times reader. Since 1994 Ireland has grown 8% per year. Unemployment sits at a low 4.5%, half of France's. The real shocker: Ireland's GDP per capita now tops England's by 15% and is second only to Luxembourg's in Europe."

Karlgaard shines light on yet another case for economic freedom... If only India's new regime and leftist voters would look at the world around them.

Andy Kessler's "NAIRU" Jacket commentary

2004-07-18T02:42:00.000-07:00

Andy Kessler: WSJ: "NAIRU" Jacket

Kessler attacking the Keynesian NAIRU and output gap concepts: "The cousin of NAIRU is the output gap, the difference between actual output and an economy running at "full" capacity, whatever that means. Get close to full, and you better start worrying about that "I" word. Alan Greenspan and the Fed have screamed from the mountaintops that rates are heading up to head off inflation, at a measured (translation: quarter point) rate. "Full" means rising prices and rising wages in that 70's wage-price spiral no one wants to go back to. "Honey, I need to buy a 50 inch flat screen TV before prices go up!"

"But who cares what economists think - what is "full" today? Back in the days of textile mills and chemical plants and auto production, "full" was pretty easy to figure out. GM sold all they could make, ran three shifts and got stuck giving raises. "Full" meant not enough ethelyne plants and rising prices for plastic. But here's the rub - we are no longer an industrial economy. Full is actually still empty. The output gap is always wide. NAIRU is a straight jacket.

"How much does it cost for another copy of Windows. Zilch. Stressed about prices? Take another Xanax, it costs almost nothing to make. Same for Lipitor. Their high costs go to fund FDA trials, not factories. How much does it cost to enable another Google search? Music download? Email? Phone call? Nanocents. The output gap of intellectual property is almost infinite. Full (and high wage) employment in research jobs is what we want and destroys the notion of NAIRU."

The McKinsey Quarterly on Outsourcing to India

2004-07-13T14:31:00.000-07:00

The McKinsey Quarterly: The McKinsey Global Survey of Business Executives , July 2004

"India also stands out as a source of talent and as a destination for R&D investment. Executives from the developed Asia-Pacific economies—especially the big companies that are first movers in offshore investment and so are most familiar with the labor landscape in India and China—are particularly keen on India. Among respondents from large companies in the Asia-Pacific region, 71 percent see India as an important source of talent; in the world as a whole, 58 percent of such executives share that view. Except in the Asia-Pacific region, more executives of large companies say that they plan to invest in R&D facilities in India than in China..."

Government of India Union Budget and Economic Survey

2004-07-08T01:27:00.000-07:00

Government of India Union Budget and Economic Survey (http://indiabudget.nic.in)

Looks like solid expectations of growth for the Indian economy (7-8%) which the leftist Congress government hopes will subsidize its plan to increase spending on India's 400 million impoverished lower class.

If this is true, then less deficits means less government borrowing, which means continuation of low interest rates in india -- a boon to ongoing business investment. Lets hope the communists dont get carried away and this dynamic plays out.

Rank	Application	% of PCs
1	uTorrent	5.56%
2	Mainline	2.28%
3	Azureus	2.11%
4	Bitcomet	1.89%
5	Bitlord	1.27%