Net

Track BitTorrent Swarm in Google Earth

This is quite cool. By using the swarm plugin for Google Earth you can look up the BitTorrent client that is used by each peer, what percentage of the file they downloaded so far, and their exact location. The only thing is that now it only shows seeds for torrents that contain the word "Borat"... I guess that more useful words are on the way.

If this could track all p2p traffic in China - you wouldn't see any thing on the map except pins.. Via TorrentFreak.

Technorati Tags: BitTorrent, Borat, Google Earth, p2p, peer-to-peer, mp3, mashups, Swarm, Torrents, tracking

Jerusalem - The Open Source City?

Is Jerusalem the true Open-Source city? I have been invited to participate in a workshop about Digital Society, Policy and the Internet at the beautiful Mishkenot Sha'ananim located in the heart of Jerusalem. The workshop is called " Jerusalem - An Open Source City in the Test of Time". The workshop is aimed to examine: How can we develop a rich and pluralist digital culture? And, what are the conditions to promote the cultural growth offered by the Internet? It is certainly a very interesting concept and Mishkenot Sha'ananim is a very special place indeed. Thanks to Dr. Nimrod Kozlovski, co-founder of Plymedia Inc (on who's Advisory Board I am a member) for inviting me. More about this later.

Technorati Tags: P2P, Open Source, Jerusalem, Digital Life, DRM

Chinas Joost Gets Funded

Kaiser reports that the "Chinese Joost" UUSee, just received $23.5 in VC funding from DFJ's Growth Fund, Highland Capital Partners and Steamboat Ventures. P2P is really flourishing in China with such players as Google invested Xunlei - a Maxthon partner, PPLive and PPStream. I agree with Kaiser's prediction that it is only a matter of 3G time until we will see mobile P2P services popping up all over China

Update: Talking about the future of video & P2P, there is an interersting article on Technology Review by Hui Zhang called "Peering into Video's Future".

Technorati Tags: China, Joost, Maxthon, p2p, PPLive, PPStream, UUSee, VC, Venture Capital, Xunlei

Joost Great!

I have seen the end of the Television as we know it - and it is called Joost! Henrik just send me a beta invite (thanks!). Looks amazing on my MacBookPro.

Technorati Tags: Joost, TV, puppy

Off to China & Piper Jaffray Conference

I'm off to China on Sunday for the Fourth Annual Piper Jaffray China Growth Conference, March 6-8 in Beijng. I will be a panelist on "Emerging Internet Companies" talking about Maxthon. Piper Jaffray is known for organizing top events (invitation only) and judging from past events - this one looks very promising indeed with a great line up.

It will be a great opportunity for networking and potential Maxthon deals. Top executives from Chinas major Internet , Wireless, Game and Technology companies will be there. I am in particular interested in the Chinese focus group conversation, since I many times wonder what makes Chinese Internet users tick'.

Following the conference I am meeting with Maxthon Fan & supporter No 1: Kaiser Kuo, rockstar & Group Director at Ogilvy Interactive in China, followed by a Maxthon boardmeeting. It will be great to meet Bill Tai (CRV), David Zhang, Yuzhu (WI Harper), Jeff and Carol (Maxthon) again - just hope it will not be as cold as the last time..

If you want to meet up in Beijing please let me know, schedule is quite tight - but long is the night..;)

Who knows, maybe I even will have time to shoot some cool Beijing street scenes?

Technorati Tags: Beijing, China, Maxthon, Ogilvy

BitTorrent Opening Media Store

BitTorrent, is opening up a media store tomorrow, Monday. The download site will distribute more than 5,000 titles from digital movies, TV shows, games and other media. After long having been the bad kid on the block, BitTorrent has finally managed to sooth Hollywood. 

When opening the store on Monday it will offer: Superman Returns, Mission: Impossible III and An Inconvenient Truth. Among the available TV shows are 24 and Chappelle's Show.

The good thing about it is that people will finally be able to download movies without the fear of viruses and bad copies. The question is, will the crowd that has long relied upon BiTorrent for free goodies stay or turn elsewere?

New Research:The User Revolution

Piper Jaffray just published a fat report called "The User Revolution: The New Advertising Ecosystem and The Rise of the Internet as a Mass Medium". Here are some of its key findings:

• We expect global online advertising revenue to reach $81.1 billion by 2011, representing a 21% CAGR (2006-2011).

• The User Revolution. The advertising world is going through a revolution, one that we call the "User Revolution" as it is happening primarily with the consumers, who are taking control of content consumption and branding. We believe this trend will cause a significant rise in prominence of the Internet as a major content consumption and marketing medium.

• "Communitainment." The Internet has increasingly become a principal medium for community, communication, and entertainment--three areas that have collided together and are impacting each other's growth--generating a new type of activity that we call communitainment.

• The Internet Is Mainstream. The Internet has become a mainstream media outlet that now rivals traditional media for reach and advertising dollars.

• Media Fragmentation. The proliferation of online and offline media outlets has resulted in shrinking television audiences and an increasingly fragmented media landscape.

• The Golden Search. We believe search continues to gain ground, driven by the rise of search as the New Portal, the increasing use of search in branding campaigns, and the local search opportunity.

• We believe Google's wide variety of non-search-related products creates a virtuous cycle of brand affinity that drives incremental search volume.

• Video Ads Could Drive The Next Wave. We believe Internet video ads could become a game changer for large brand advertisers, who are used to the 15- or 30-second TV commercial

• Internet Usage Patterns Are Changing. Portals maintain the highest reach, but the fastest growing category of destinations is communitainment sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

• Ad networks are experiencing increased demand due to increasing Internet fragmentation, desire for more targeted inventory, increasing usage of networks for branding, and increased site visibility.

• Agencies are rapidly evolving into more sophisticated, technology-savvy entities that combine best of breed offerings.

• Companies to watch: Google (and YouTube), Yahoo!, Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Microsoft, InterActive, Facebook, Craigslist, Brightcove, Yelp, SINA Corp., Baidu, aQuantive, ValueClick, 24/7 Media, Netflix, Wikipedia, MobiTV, Digg, and Hakia to be the most important players to watch.

Like my good friend Kaiser Kuo, Group Director for Digital Strategy, for Ogilvy China, mentions in this new (and great) blog " Ich bin ein Beijinger" : none of this should come as a surprise, but the report is full of eye-opening finding regarding the decline of TV viewing, changing viewing and decline of broadcast TV ad as percentage of total ad spend.

Kaiser who has a unique insight to China (and was very much responsible for Maxthon getting discovered and funded..) is confident that advertisers will flock to video ads and all the opportunities that are opening up for digital media advertising in China .However, he wonders how ready people really are for pre-roll commercials stuffed in to things they want to watch.

I tend to agree with Kaiser, although there is a fantastic opportunity for advertisers, the Internet savvy users might very well prefer to block ads if possible. This is something we have learned at Maxthon and seems to be especially true for Chinese Internet users. Al the sophisticated ad-blockers and filters that come pre-installed in Maxthon has definitely been one of the key driving factors for Maxthon success in China.

Anyway, next week I am flying down to Beijing again to talk on Piper Jaffrays Annual China Growth Conference on behalf of Maxthon. I will then have a chance not only to meet up with Safa and rest of the Piper Jaffray gang, but also to meet with Kaiser again and plot how we can deliver some interesting advertising opportunities together in China.

 

Thanks to Mark Pols for sending me this fat report!

Bonus: Video Interview with Kaiser I made just before he left the Red Herring.

On Media NYC Wrap Up

I am sitting on the plane between JFK and San Francisco after having attended On Media NYC and am trying to summerize my thoughts about the conference. My overall impression is that its was a great event in terms of networking, speaker line ups and of course the reception. I had a chance to re-connect with old friends, business partners and make new contacts.

Having said that, I felt like in many other conferences: "heard it before, been there, said that and know that". Most of the panelist were all too predictive and didn't really contribute with anything new and refreshing. However, Tony Perkins and Bill Cleary and did a great job setting it all up and with the fantastic backdrop of Central Park and Colombia Circle ! Tony & Bill also showcased their home made videos that triggered many laughs.

A few speakers and panelist sticked out though:

• Peter Hirshberg, Technorati's Chairman did a great and entertaining presentation.

• Can Brands Get Away with "Buzz Marketing" in the Blogosphere? With Jeff Jarvis, David Weinberger, Rich Murray, Gordon Gould and  Barry Reicherter. Funny enough the only thing I can remember from this panel was Davids' attach on Pay Per Post, and the word "lubricant..".

• Workshop: Venture and Angel Financing for Private Companies with Sam Angus, partner Fenwick & West, Ron Conway, Angel Investors, Garry Kitchen, CEO Skyworks,  Howard Morgan Idealab (very funny guy) and Mark Stevens, partner, Fenwick & West. It was the first time I attended a workshop at a conference and really felt that I learned something new and useful. Compared to other lame workshops (especially the one on how to become a power blogger - most bloggers are better Online than Offline..). This workshop was well prepared, provided the audience with a great hands on advice, very helpful hand outs out and really offered some very valueable advice to start ups about raising angel/seed or venture capital and what a kind of template for how a well balanced deal should look like.. What I didn't understand is why Mark Steves several times ditched CRV's Quick  Start program. Do I sense some kind of fear of loosing fees...?

  Oh, and there were some great CEO Showcase presentations as well. Anyway, it was a great event in terms of networking I will definatly come next time too.

Technorati Tags: Alwayson, Media, OnMedia

BitTorrent Tutorial Roundup

Torrentfreak has published a great round up of BitTorrent related tutorials:. It's so good that I have published it here in its entirety:

The Basics

1. How to Make a Torrent

Torrents are great, they are the best way to share large files with your friends, or even with people you don’t know at all. But surprisingly enough, not many people create torrents when they need to share something.

2. How to find Torrents

10 Great Torrent Sites + Firefox Search Plugins.

3. How To Encrypt BitTorrent Traffic

More and more ISP’s are limiting and throttling BitTorrent traffic on their networks. By throttling BitTorrent traffic the speed of BitTorrent downloads decreases, and high speed downloads are out of the question.

Speed Up Your BitTorrent Downloads

4. How to Optimize Your BitTorrent Download Speed

BitTorrent can be fun, as long as you get decent speeds. Not satisfied with your current speeds? These suggestions might help yo optimize your download pleasure.

5. How to Speed Up Bitcomet and uTorrent

90% off all people use the default settings on their client, and that’s a problem.

6. How to Protect Your Torrent From Failing Trackers

Nothing is more frustrating than your download getting stuck. The fact that a torrent has stopped downloading can have several reasons.

Technorati Tags: Bittorrent, howto, p2p, tutorial, uTorrent, puppy, puppy, Torrentfreak

VC Investments In Chinese Video Sites

ChinaVenture reports that 17 Chinese Online Video sites got $95.5 million in funding since 2004 with an investment peak of $52.7 million in 2006.
Below is a chart illustrating the investments. As you can see WI Harper invested in Radio.cn but missing from the list is Charles River Ventures investment in Wangyou Media in March 2006.

Technorati Tags: Blogcn, Charles River Ventures, China, CRV, Wangyou media