Overcoming the Network Effects? 30
paul_harrison asks: "I am trying to introduce a new
P2P protocol. It's technically superior in several respects to existing protocols, but there's one big problem: too few people using it. Now this is not a new problem, there's even a name for it, "Network Effect". It crops up all over the place: which websites become popular, which formats and protocols people use, which operating systems people use, even which side of the road people drive on...
So my question is this: how do things like these overcome network effects and become popular?"
Obvious (Score:3, Funny)
P2P clients become popular... (Score:2, Insightful)
missing key features (Score:3, Funny)
Money (Score:2)
Everybody's doing it (Score:1)
You contradict yourself (Score:5, Insightful)
Then at the end you state: "In particular, if you try to share snuff or child pornography, I will be able to work out you IP and from that your location and identity. And I will report you to the police."
So, which is it? P2P with no censorship, no booting, or P2P With censorship and booting?
No contradiction at all... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:No contradiction at all... (Score:1)
Re:You contradict yourself (Score:1)
Unless you're terribly broken up about some sick bastard being sent to jail for child porn, get over it.
Re:You contradict yourself (Score:2, Insightful)
Unless you're terribly broken up about some sick bastard being sent to jail for child porn, get over it.
No, we do not like child pornographers.
No, I wouldn't be torn by any of them going to jail.
Hell, I think they all should be shot.
But, that isnt the point. The author sas there will be no banning. But he tells us he will ban child pornographers?
Once he changes his wording, I will be happy, but I dunno if the rest of the people will be.
Re:You contradict yourself (Score:2)
You misunderstand. There is no contradiction. You can share all the child porn and snuff all you want, but you will also be reported to the police. No banning involved, however it'll be quite hard to share your files when your computer has been impounded and you are in prison. ;-)
What problem are you solving? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What problem are you solving? (Score:2, Informative)
This work doesn't solve any new problems and is essentially the same as Chord [mit.edu], a project at MIT, which has the same basic layout but in a more structured fashion (as far as I can tell from his slides). Chord came out over a year ago (they submitted to last year's SIGCOMM which would have been due in early 2001). He mentions that they're very similar, but as far as I can tell, there is nothing new in his implementation and it isn't necessarily as good. The Chord guys actually prove how fast their system works while he just waves his hands. They also have a paper about how to actually implement a p2p file system over it (I think they give a reference to someone who actually did it too).
There's no good reason this work should have been accepted. Whoever reviewed for this linux.conf.au dropped the ball in a big way. A real academic reviewer would have eaten him alive it.
Re:What problem are you solving? (Score:1)
Compatibility. (Score:3, Interesting)
You're probably going to have to offer some form of compatibility layer with the other networks. That's how Limewire got it's improved Gnutella protocol out there.
That is assuming that your protocol really does offer tangible benefits and people will want to continue using it when the other networks are available to them as well.
target a genre specific music community (Score:3, Interesting)
Contradictions are killers.... (Score:2, Redundant)
"...no censorship, no entry taxes, no one booting you off the network, and no weak point which can break the whole system."
versus"In particular, if you try to share snuff or child pornography, I will be able to work out you IP and from that your location and identity. And I will report you to the police."
So which is it? Censored or not? While you may be trying to do the moral thing here, this 'censorship' will be the downfall of your P2P network and it will probably not progress beyond your own little 'circle'.If you're gonna make a new one... (Score:1)
Also, after that experience and sniffing port 1214 with netcat for a bit to see wtf was going on, I'd say you might want to do some traffic analysis of other P2P networks if you're gonna try to censor the kiddie porn - you might be biting off more than you can chew, assuming anyone did use it.
This is so easy... (Score:1)
One word: Content. Simply ensure that your [yet another] P2P network has tons of 1) porn, 2) pirated a) software, b) music, c) movies.
You owe me $42,369 US in consulting fees. Payable immediately. Ping me offline regarding the bank account for the wire transfer.
Easy to use interface (Score:1)
Telling the average user he needs to install putty and and put plink in his path is like speaking japanese.The buety of limewire and bearshare is the user installs the software with one click and it works on just about any network.
Also, making the interface attractive and bug free probably would'nt hurt.For example your windows client seems to have a bug where it keeps asking for the hostname of my firewall(I dont have one) and wont let me exit the program.
If you write better software they will come.
Use the network Luke- or something ;-) (Score:2)
how to overcome: (Score:1)
One way is to provide a gateway between it and .. (Score:1)
For each of your listed situations, its different (Score:1)
Why do people have different priorities for their choice of operating system? Why do people have different priorities for choice of monitor?
If you want the real answer to "why", ask yourself, and I ask non-faecetiously: Why did you not adopt and support an existing P2P protocol instead of writing your own?
Sometimes people adopt something because they share a belief system with the author - qMail is a good example. Other times it is because they have a need the authors are catering for - exim is a good example. Whilst other times it is because "better the devil you know" - sendmail is a large example.
You could ask why the Roxen webserver (which predated Apache in its incarnation as 'Spinner') is virtually unknown - when its XML-like server-side scripting system, its performance and sophisticated caching systems would seem to make it todays ideal candidate. (http://www.roxen.com)
In today's environment, however, the answer is usually that there are too many choices and not enough differences. We don't have time to do a complete study of all the options for each and every program for our requirement. We look at the first paint program that supports 'dongleberry' format and learn our way around that. We try three 'ldap' capable mail systems and go with the one that installed man pages not tex files that Wouldn'tBuildHere(TM). We choose our programmers editor based on the "summary" in the first results page returned by google, and we choose our P2P network by asking Harry where he got that awesome new Britney Strips video.
Re:For each of your listed situations, its differe (Score:1)
More specifically the interesting cases are items that are natrual monopolies, operating systems and telecommunications networks are the best examples. It is prohibitavly expensive to build another telephone network since you will not make enough if you only get 50% of the customers (I made that up on the spot), however two more competitive firms would be much less profitable than one single firm and consumers would be worse off imagine if you couldn't call half the phones out there.
Operating systems are another less clear example, the more developers and users an OS has the more valuable it is since there are more useful applications, which are made because of the larger userbase. Other pieces of software are influenced by network effects, applications that allow additional application functionality browsers, appication servers, some servers, etc. and p2p because the draw is in how much stuff is there, think about how much simpler things were when Napster was the network over ftp/irc/usnet.
Other examples are standards, which become more valuable as more people sign on to the standard. This is why Rambus' actions were reviled by JDEC.
For most industries you are right people choose the first solution that works and gets their attention, however in industries with high levels of network effects the first company there usually has the advantage.
Universities are a key targettable (Score:1)
Many strange products that should have died early in their lifetimes have lived long and prosperous lifespans because they managed to get their foot in the educators door...
Port to the Mac and avoid competition (Score:1)