BitTorrent getting into the CDN game

Interesting news today. BitTorrent (P2P file sharing service) is looking to commercialize its technology. After building a broad user base for their software for file sharing (media, images, software), BitTorrent is now looking to take advantage of that footprint and offer it to media companies for distributed content delivery. Also, they’re trying to incorporate their software into consumer devices and set-top boxes.

Essentially, they’re looking at their network of P2P enabled private desktops as a Content Delivery Network like Akamai – which has thousands of caching/application servers in hundreds of ISP locations and networks. Sounds pretty logical, but will corporations pay for that type of service? It’s very hard to establish/control acceptable service levels, since BitTorrent doesn’t have control over this distributed personal computer network. A CDN on the other hand guarantees SLAs around availability and quality. Anybody who’s ever used a P2P service like BitTorrent or Limewire knows that reliability and throughput varies quite a bit. So, would Disney pay good money for putting their new movie trailers on a P2P network and then cross their fingers that the user experience will be good? I don’t think so! Other thoughts or comments?

 Here’s the link to the story.

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