Peer-to-Peer Site
Some readers may be toying with the idea of sitting up a peer-to-peer (P2P) site. The way the Web was originally set up, the website owner posts content on a server (referred to as “web server”), and the audience connects to that server via a web browser to view the content. To interact live with other users, everyone connects to the same server at the same time. With P2P, however, the computers of individual users are connected together directly — no central server is necessary.
Still, a website is often used as an adjunct to a file sharing network to promote the network and to provide customer service. Peer-to-peer file sharing opens a whole new range of business opportunities.
The original Napster (versus the new subscription-based Napster) brought P2P to the forefront, although the original Napster wasn’t a true P2P business model — it operated around a central server. However, it is noted that the old Napster’s central server concept also was the cause of the business’s eventual downfall. (At its peak, the old Napster was perhaps the most popular website ever created — in less than a year, it went from zero to 60 million visitors per month.)
There are many alternatives to the Napster P2P model. One of the more interesting of these alternatives is Gnutella. Unlike Napster, Gnutella and its variants aren’t software at all; rather they are communication protocols similar to the common gateway interface (CGI) used by most web servers.
Any software that implements a Gnutella-like communication protocol can communicate with other Gnutella-enabled software applications.It may be difficult to come up with a viable, profit-making business model for this type of P2P network. However, visit sites such as Bearshare.com, Livewire.com and Swapper.com, for examples of how current P2P file-sharing networks use websites to produce income.
Some readers may be toying with the idea of sitting up a peer-to-peer (P2P) site. The way the Web was originally set up, the website owner posts content on a server (referred to as “web server”), and the audience connects to that server via a web browser to view the content. To interact live with other users, everyone connects to the same server at the same time. With P2P, however, the computers of individual users are connected together directly — no central server is necessary.
Still, a website is often used as an adjunct to a file sharing network to promote the network and to provide customer service. Peer-to-peer file sharing opens a whole new range of business opportunities.
The original Napster (versus the new subscription-based Napster) brought P2P to the forefront, although the original Napster wasn’t a true P2P business model — it operated around a central server. However, it is noted that the old Napster’s central server concept also was the cause of the business’s eventual downfall. (At its peak, the old Napster was perhaps the most popular website ever created — in less than a year, it went from zero to 60 million visitors per month.)
There are many alternatives to the Napster P2P model. One of the more interesting of these alternatives is Gnutella. Unlike Napster, Gnutella and its variants aren’t software at all; rather they are communication protocols similar to the common gateway interface (CGI) used by most web servers.
Any software that implements a Gnutella-like communication protocol can communicate with other Gnutella-enabled software applications.It may be difficult to come up with a viable, profit-making business model for this type of P2P network. However, visit sites such as Bearshare.com, Livewire.com and Swapper.com, for examples of how current P2P file-sharing networks use websites to produce income.