Jazz Odyssey

Wired reports: "Whiz kid inventor Bram Cohen and a small cadre of developers and entrepreneurs are in the final stage of launching an advertising-supported search engine dedicated to cataloging and indexing the thousands of movies, music tracks, software programs and other files for download over Cohen’s popular BitTorrent protocol….The ranked search results will be accompanied by sponsored links provided through a partnership with Oakland, California, company Ask Jeeves".

This is an interesting development. Cohen’s first serious attempt at the commercial monetization of his creation meets a demand for a torrent metasearch which will drive ad revenues. The search engine ranks in terms of both relevance and availability which makes for a more useful and more familiar way to navigate BitTorrent…this is likely to catalyze an influx of newbies into the system and usage will grow. The downside for BitTorrent fans and folks running tracker sites is that a set of central search results is an easy target for the RIAA/MPAA to launch legal actions.

What should prove most interesting is that Cohen’s search engine will be a way to get a handle on what and how much is actually being shared through BitTorrent. This provides another data point for companies like Big Champagne to analyze and sell to their clients. Then again, the idea of a central repository of torrents may scare some users and tracker sites who may decide to take advantage of new BitTorrent functionality that removes the need for a central tracker and move their activities underground, or into "gated" communities of traders. Or, the most popular and most available content becomes a target for companies like Overpeer and Media Defender to develop ways to corrupt the swarms in defense of the content they are trying to protect.

The technological arms race between file sharers and content owners continues…don’t look for a winner anytime soon. You can read the full article from Wired here…