To all those that remember Swarmcast from the OpenCola days, we're back!


http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/default.cfm?
Action=ReleaseDetail&ID=14660

Swarmcast Receives More Than $5 Million in Funding

Minneapolis, MN  55414

November 30 2006

Swarmcast Receives More Than $5 Million in Funding from Strategic
Japanese Investors

Swarmcast Technology to Enable High-Definition Broadband TV Channels
in Japan and the U.S.

MINNEAPOLIS (November 30, 2006) - Swarmcast, the Minneapolis- and
Tokyo-based inventor of grid network content distribution via the
Internet, today announced that its parent company, Onion Networks
Japan, has recently completed a venture round, raising more than US
$5 million capital. The funding round was led by two prestigious
Japanese investment firms: Bridge Capital Fund (BCF), a Nikko
antfactory- and Nikko Cordial-sponsored venture fund, and Nippon
Venture Capital (NVCC). The additional capital will be used to
advance the company's growth and to launch new services for
delivering commercial High Definition-quality video over the Internet
in the US and Japan.

"We are pleased to have completed this venture financing round with
these highly regarded Japanese venture capital firms," said Justin
Chapweske, president and CEO of Swarmcast. "We are now extremely well-
positioned to capitalize on our mature products as demand for HD over
broadband becomes ubiquitous."

Swarmcast currently licenses its technology for distribution of 250GB
Hollywood movies to North America's largest network of digital
cinemas. Swarmcast is now offering its services for the delivery of
large HD media files to consumers over standard broadband.

For the rapidly growing broadband video industry, the company's
Swarmcast technology enables video delivery sites and content owners
to offer HD-quality video over the existing internet infrastructure
at dramatically reduced bandwidth costs without the need for
additional integration or infrastructure.

"Swarmcast holds the last piece of the puzzle to commercialize
entertainment over the Internet for the masses," said BCF Managing
Partner Yoav Keidar. “Their innovative software platform will enable
extreme differentiation for content providers by way of providing
full-screen HDTV over the Internet and we are excited to invest and
advance this ground-breaking technology.”

About Swarmcast
Swarmcast, previously known as Onion Networks, powers the reliable
distribution of on-demand video at High Definition-quality levels
over the existing internet infrastructure. The software is globally
used in digital cinema, data outsourcing, consumer electronics
devices and professional sports. The company founder, Justin
Chapweske, invented the basic grid-based delivery technology in 1999
and formed Onion Networks in 2001.

Media Contact:
Paula Gottlob/PGPR; 206-281-5389; PGPR@...

Paula Gottlob (PGPR@...)
Swarmcast.com
212 2nd Streert Suite 128
Minneapolis, MN   55414
Phone : 206-281-5389

Justin,

Would it be smart to cooperate in implementing this http://
cmapspublic.ihmc.us:80/servlet/SBReadResourceServlet?
rid=1161174559451_1892856575_804&partName=htmltext system?

Please let me know. Thanks.

Best wishes,

Axel P. Mustad


On Nov 30, 2006, at 5:48 PM, Justin Chapweske wrote:

> To all those that remember Swarmcast from the OpenCola days, we're
> back!
>
>
> http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/default.cfm?
> Action=ReleaseDetail&ID=14660
>
> Swarmcast Receives More Than $5 Million in Funding
>
> Minneapolis, MN  55414
>
> November 30 2006
>
> Swarmcast Receives More Than $5 Million in Funding from Strategic
> Japanese Investors
>
> Swarmcast Technology to Enable High-Definition Broadband TV Channels
> in Japan and the U.S.
>
> MINNEAPOLIS (November 30, 2006) - Swarmcast, the Minneapolis- and
> Tokyo-based inventor of grid network content distribution via the
> Internet, today announced that its parent company, Onion Networks
> Japan, has recently completed a venture round, raising more than US
> $5 million capital. The funding round was led by two prestigious
> Japanese investment firms: Bridge Capital Fund (BCF), a Nikko
> antfactory- and Nikko Cordial-sponsored venture fund, and Nippon
> Venture Capital (NVCC). The additional capital will be used to
> advance the company's growth and to launch new services for
> delivering commercial High Definition-quality video over the Internet
> in the US and Japan.
>
> "We are pleased to have completed this venture financing round with
> these highly regarded Japanese venture capital firms," said Justin
> Chapweske, president and CEO of Swarmcast. "We are now extremely well-
> positioned to capitalize on our mature products as demand for HD over
> broadband becomes ubiquitous."
>
> Swarmcast currently licenses its technology for distribution of 250GB
> Hollywood movies to North America's largest network of digital
> cinemas. Swarmcast is now offering its services for the delivery of
> large HD media files to consumers over standard broadband.
>
> For the rapidly growing broadband video industry, the company's
> Swarmcast technology enables video delivery sites and content owners
> to offer HD-quality video over the existing internet infrastructure
> at dramatically reduced bandwidth costs without the need for
> additional integration or infrastructure.
>
> "Swarmcast holds the last piece of the puzzle to commercialize
> entertainment over the Internet for the masses," said BCF Managing
> Partner Yoav Keidar. “Their innovative software platform will enable
> extreme differentiation for content providers by way of providing
> full-screen HDTV over the Internet and we are excited to invest and
> advance this ground-breaking technology.”
>
> About Swarmcast
> Swarmcast, previously known as Onion Networks, powers the reliable
> distribution of on-demand video at High Definition-quality levels
> over the existing internet infrastructure. The software is globally
> used in digital cinema, data outsourcing, consumer electronics
> devices and professional sports. The company founder, Justin
> Chapweske, invented the basic grid-based delivery technology in 1999
> and formed Onion Networks in 2001.
>
> Media Contact:
> Paula Gottlob/PGPR; 206-281-5389; PGPR@...
>
> Paula Gottlob (PGPR@...)
> Swarmcast.com
> 212 2nd Streert Suite 128
> Minneapolis, MN   55414
> Phone : 206-281-5389
>
> Announce or discover P2P conferences on the P2P Conference Wiki at
> http://www.neurogrid.net/twiki/bin/view/Main/PeerToPeerConferences
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Hi Alex,

Basically Swarmcast can be used to facilitate most any type of media
delivery use case.  We aim to keep our services open and following
sound REST principals so that it is extremely simple to integrate and
interoperate.  Basically, if you build it and it is HTTP, Swarmcast
should work with it with little or no changes.

Thanks,

-Justin

On Nov 30, 2006, at 11:15 AM, Axel P. Mustad wrote:

>
> Justin,
>
> Would it be smart to cooperate in implementing this http://
> cmapspublic.ihmc.us:80/servlet/SBReadResourceServlet?
> rid=1161174559451_1892856575_804&partName=htmltext system?
>
> Please let me know. Thanks.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Axel P. Mustad
>
>
> On Nov 30, 2006, at 5:48 PM, Justin Chapweske wrote:
>
>> To all those that remember Swarmcast from the OpenCola days, we're
>> back!
>>
>>
>> http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/default.cfm?
>> Action=ReleaseDetail&ID=14660
>>
>> Swarmcast Receives More Than $5 Million in Funding
>>
>> Minneapolis, MN  55414
>>
>> November 30 2006
>>
>> Swarmcast Receives More Than $5 Million in Funding from Strategic
>> Japanese Investors
>>
>> Swarmcast Technology to Enable High-Definition Broadband TV Channels
>> in Japan and the U.S.
>>
>> MINNEAPOLIS (November 30, 2006) - Swarmcast, the Minneapolis- and
>> Tokyo-based inventor of grid network content distribution via the
>> Internet, today announced that its parent company, Onion Networks
>> Japan, has recently completed a venture round, raising more than US
>> $5 million capital. The funding round was led by two prestigious
>> Japanese investment firms: Bridge Capital Fund (BCF), a Nikko
>> antfactory- and Nikko Cordial-sponsored venture fund, and Nippon
>> Venture Capital (NVCC). The additional capital will be used to
>> advance the company's growth and to launch new services for
>> delivering commercial High Definition-quality video over the Internet
>> in the US and Japan.
>>
>> "We are pleased to have completed this venture financing round with
>> these highly regarded Japanese venture capital firms," said Justin
>> Chapweske, president and CEO of Swarmcast. "We are now extremely
>> well-
>> positioned to capitalize on our mature products as demand for HD over
>> broadband becomes ubiquitous."
>>
>> Swarmcast currently licenses its technology for distribution of 250GB
>> Hollywood movies to North America's largest network of digital
>> cinemas. Swarmcast is now offering its services for the delivery of
>> large HD media files to consumers over standard broadband.
>>
>> For the rapidly growing broadband video industry, the company's
>> Swarmcast technology enables video delivery sites and content owners
>> to offer HD-quality video over the existing internet infrastructure
>> at dramatically reduced bandwidth costs without the need for
>> additional integration or infrastructure.
>>
>> "Swarmcast holds the last piece of the puzzle to commercialize
>> entertainment over the Internet for the masses," said BCF Managing
>> Partner Yoav Keidar. “Their innovative software platform will enable
>> extreme differentiation for content providers by way of providing
>> full-screen HDTV over the Internet and we are excited to invest and
>> advance this ground-breaking technology.”
>>
>> About Swarmcast
>> Swarmcast, previously known as Onion Networks, powers the reliable
>> distribution of on-demand video at High Definition-quality levels
>> over the existing internet infrastructure. The software is globally
>> used in digital cinema, data outsourcing, consumer electronics
>> devices and professional sports. The company founder, Justin
>> Chapweske, invented the basic grid-based delivery technology in 1999
>> and formed Onion Networks in 2001.
>>
>> Media Contact:
>> Paula Gottlob/PGPR; 206-281-5389; PGPR@...
>>
>> Paula Gottlob (PGPR@...)
>> Swarmcast.com
>> 212 2nd Streert Suite 128
>> Minneapolis, MN   55414
>> Phone : 206-281-5389
>>
>> Announce or discover P2P conferences on the P2P Conference Wiki at
>> http://www.neurogrid.net/twiki/bin/view/Main/PeerToPeerConferences
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> Announce or discover P2P conferences on the P2P Conference Wiki at
> http://www.neurogrid.net/twiki/bin/view/Main/PeerToPeerConferences
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Justin Chapweske wrote:
> We aim to keep our services open and following
> sound REST principals so that it is extremely simple to integrate and
> interoperate.  Basically, if you build it and it is HTTP, Swarmcast
> should work with it with little or no changes.

Hi Justin,

Given that Swarmcast is not HTTP, how does it fit into REST?

-Lucas

On 11/30/06, Lucas Gonze <lucas@...> wrote:
> Justin Chapweske wrote:
> > We aim to keep our services open and following
> > sound REST principals so that it is extremely simple to integrate and
> > interoperate.  Basically, if you build it and it is HTTP, Swarmcast
> > should work with it with little or no changes.
>
> Hi Justin,
>
> Given that Swarmcast is not HTTP, how does it fit into REST?

Not that REST requires HTTP, of course 8-)

But a cloud can present an HTTP interface without being HTTP throughout.

Mark.

Mark Baker wrote:
> On 11/30/06, Lucas Gonze <lucas@...> wrote:
>> Justin Chapweske wrote:
>>> We aim to keep our services open and following
>>> sound REST principals so that it is extremely simple to integrate and
>>> interoperate.  Basically, if you build it and it is HTTP, Swarmcast
>>> should work with it with little or no changes.
>> Hi Justin,
>>
>> Given that Swarmcast is not HTTP, how does it fit into REST?
>
> Not that REST requires HTTP, of course 8-)
>
> But a cloud can present an HTTP interface without being HTTP throughout.

Any other legal permutations?  How about:
- request a chunk of a file split into two pieces.
- get back the chunk along with a response header that gives a URI for
the other chunk, on some other server.

-Lucas

That sounds suspiciously likey hypermedia. You probably don't need
response headers for that, but you may need a multi-part response
body.


On 11/30/06, Lucas Gonze <lucas@...> wrote:
> Mark Baker wrote:
> > On 11/30/06, Lucas Gonze <lucas@...> wrote:
> >> Justin Chapweske wrote:
> >>> We aim to keep our services open and following
> >>> sound REST principals so that it is extremely simple to integrate and
> >>> interoperate.  Basically, if you build it and it is HTTP, Swarmcast
> >>> should work with it with little or no changes.
> >> Hi Justin,
> >>
> >> Given that Swarmcast is not HTTP, how does it fit into REST?
> >
> > Not that REST requires HTTP, of course 8-)
> >
> > But a cloud can present an HTTP interface without being HTTP throughout.
>
> Any other legal permutations?  How about:
> - request a chunk of a file split into two pieces.
> - get back the chunk along with a response header that gives a URI for
> the other chunk, on some other server.
>
> -Lucas
>
>
>
> Announce or discover P2P conferences on the P2P Conference Wiki at
> http://www.neurogrid.net/twiki/bin/view/Main/PeerToPeerConferences
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

Swarmcast 3.0 is a lot different than Swarmcast 1.0.  Its pretty much
entirely HTTP.  You can download the standalone proxy at http://
swarmcast.net/install/ and use it as a full-blown caching proxy for
any app that speaks HTTP.

On Nov 30, 2006, at 10:09 PM, Lucas Gonze wrote:

> Justin Chapweske wrote:
>> We aim to keep our services open and following
>> sound REST principals so that it is extremely simple to integrate and
>> interoperate.  Basically, if you build it and it is HTTP, Swarmcast
>> should work with it with little or no changes.
>
> Hi Justin,
>
> Given that Swarmcast is not HTTP, how does it fit into REST?
>
> -Lucas
>
>
> Announce or discover P2P conferences on the P2P Conference Wiki at
> http://www.neurogrid.net/twiki/bin/view/Main/PeerToPeerConferences
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Congratulations Justin, go for it:-)

Rikard

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

Brilliant technology, Justin, congratulations.

It's just a pity that bringing in investment from venture capital in
Companies in this way tends to dilute and potentially compromise the
drive and vision that got you where you are.

An emerging alternative would have been to use a US LLC or UK LLP
(and you can do this across borders) to bring in Investors
as "Capital Partners" and to share the revenues with them.  The
Canadians use "Trusts" to do this in a big way, but that is complex,
costly and imperfect in other ways.

Such an "Open Corporate" model would also mean that you could bring
in licensees also as Member/Partners on a revenue-sharing basis.

And dispense with share options and bring in staff as partners, also
on a revenue share.

In other words, you can raise development finance not by selling
ownership and control, but rather proportional "Equity Shares" in
future GROSS revenues.

Good luck, anyway.

Best Regards

Chris Cook



--- In decentralization@yahoogroups.com, Justin Chapweske
<justin@...> wrote:
>
> To all those that remember Swarmcast from the OpenCola days, we're
back!
>
>
> http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/default.cfm?
> Action=ReleaseDetail&ID=14660
>
> Swarmcast Receives More Than $5 Million in Funding
>
> Minneapolis, MN  55414
>
> November 30 2006
>
> Swarmcast Receives More Than $5 Million in Funding from Strategic
> Japanese Investors
>
> Swarmcast Technology to Enable High-Definition Broadband TV
Channels
> in Japan and the U.S.
>
> MINNEAPOLIS (November 30, 2006) - Swarmcast, the Minneapolis- and
> Tokyo-based inventor of grid network content distribution via the
> Internet, today announced that its parent company, Onion Networks
> Japan, has recently completed a venture round, raising more than
US
> $5 million capital. The funding round was led by two prestigious
> Japanese investment firms: Bridge Capital Fund (BCF), a Nikko
> antfactory- and Nikko Cordial-sponsored venture fund, and Nippon
> Venture Capital (NVCC). The additional capital will be used to
> advance the company's growth and to launch new services for
> delivering commercial High Definition-quality video over the
Internet
> in the US and Japan.
>
> "We are pleased to have completed this venture financing round
with
> these highly regarded Japanese venture capital firms," said Justin
> Chapweske, president and CEO of Swarmcast. "We are now extremely
well-
> positioned to capitalize on our mature products as demand for HD
over
> broadband becomes ubiquitous."
>
> Swarmcast currently licenses its technology for distribution of
250GB
> Hollywood movies to North America's largest network of digital
> cinemas. Swarmcast is now offering its services for the delivery
of
> large HD media files to consumers over standard broadband.
>
> For the rapidly growing broadband video industry, the company's
> Swarmcast technology enables video delivery sites and content
owners
> to offer HD-quality video over the existing internet
infrastructure
> at dramatically reduced bandwidth costs without the need for
> additional integration or infrastructure.
>
> "Swarmcast holds the last piece of the puzzle to commercialize
> entertainment over the Internet for the masses," said BCF Managing
> Partner Yoav Keidar. "Their innovative software platform will
enable
> extreme differentiation for content providers by way of providing
> full-screen HDTV over the Internet and we are excited to invest
and
> advance this ground-breaking technology."
>
> About Swarmcast
> Swarmcast, previously known as Onion Networks, powers the reliable
> distribution of on-demand video at High Definition-quality levels
> over the existing internet infrastructure. The software is
globally
> used in digital cinema, data outsourcing, consumer electronics
> devices and professional sports. The company founder, Justin
> Chapweske, invented the basic grid-based delivery technology in
1999
> and formed Onion Networks in 2001.
>
> Media Contact:
> Paula Gottlob/PGPR; 206-281-5389; PGPR@...
>
> Paula Gottlob (PGPR@...)
> Swarmcast.com
> 212 2nd Streert Suite 128
> Minneapolis, MN   55414
> Phone : 206-281-5389
>

Dear Chris,

I cannot find any contact information on you. I could need some help in
setting up an LLP (in UK) for the formation of a co-operative innovation
(knowledge sharing / IPR managment) and trading system (securities
exchange with belonging clearinghouse mechanism) for community based
collaborative development of nanotechnologies for sustainable and futute
energy technologies. We are are a very large group of universities,
industry networks (trade bodies), finance institutions and government
(Nordic, EU, OECD) bodies looking into cooperation. Please contact me
directly at axel@... and leave me a telephone number as I want to
speak with you. Thanks..

Best wishes,

Axel P. Mustad

> Brilliant technology, Justin, congratulations.
>
> It's just a pity that bringing in investment from venture capital in
> Companies in this way tends to dilute and potentially compromise the
> drive and vision that got you where you are.
>
> An emerging alternative would have been to use a US LLC or UK LLP
> (and you can do this across borders) to bring in Investors
> as "Capital Partners" and to share the revenues with them.  The
> Canadians use "Trusts" to do this in a big way, but that is complex,
> costly and imperfect in other ways.
>
> Such an "Open Corporate" model would also mean that you could bring
> in licensees also as Member/Partners on a revenue-sharing basis.
>
> And dispense with share options and bring in staff as partners, also
> on a revenue share.
>
> In other words, you can raise development finance not by selling
> ownership and control, but rather proportional "Equity Shares" in
> future GROSS revenues.
>
> Good luck, anyway.
>
> Best Regards
>
> Chris Cook
>
>
>
> --- In decentralization@yahoogroups.com, Justin Chapweske
> <justin@...> wrote:
>>
>> To all those that remember Swarmcast from the OpenCola days, we're
> back!
>>
>>
>> http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/default.cfm?
>> Action=ReleaseDetail&ID=14660
>>
>> Swarmcast Receives More Than $5 Million in Funding
>>
>> Minneapolis, MN  55414
>>
>> November 30 2006
>>
>> Swarmcast Receives More Than $5 Million in Funding from Strategic
>> Japanese Investors
>>
>> Swarmcast Technology to Enable High-Definition Broadband TV
> Channels
>> in Japan and the U.S.
>>
>> MINNEAPOLIS (November 30, 2006) - Swarmcast, the Minneapolis- and
>> Tokyo-based inventor of grid network content distribution via the
>> Internet, today announced that its parent company, Onion Networks
>> Japan, has recently completed a venture round, raising more than
> US
>> $5 million capital. The funding round was led by two prestigious
>> Japanese investment firms: Bridge Capital Fund (BCF), a Nikko
>> antfactory- and Nikko Cordial-sponsored venture fund, and Nippon
>> Venture Capital (NVCC). The additional capital will be used to
>> advance the company's growth and to launch new services for
>> delivering commercial High Definition-quality video over the
> Internet
>> in the US and Japan.
>>
>> "We are pleased to have completed this venture financing round
> with
>> these highly regarded Japanese venture capital firms," said Justin
>> Chapweske, president and CEO of Swarmcast. "We are now extremely
> well-
>> positioned to capitalize on our mature products as demand for HD
> over
>> broadband becomes ubiquitous."
>>
>> Swarmcast currently licenses its technology for distribution of
> 250GB
>> Hollywood movies to North America's largest network of digital
>> cinemas. Swarmcast is now offering its services for the delivery
> of
>> large HD media files to consumers over standard broadband.
>>
>> For the rapidly growing broadband video industry, the company's
>> Swarmcast technology enables video delivery sites and content
> owners
>> to offer HD-quality video over the existing internet
> infrastructure
>> at dramatically reduced bandwidth costs without the need for
>> additional integration or infrastructure.
>>
>> "Swarmcast holds the last piece of the puzzle to commercialize
>> entertainment over the Internet for the masses," said BCF Managing
>> Partner Yoav Keidar. "Their innovative software platform will
> enable
>> extreme differentiation for content providers by way of providing
>> full-screen HDTV over the Internet and we are excited to invest
> and
>> advance this ground-breaking technology."
>>
>> About Swarmcast
>> Swarmcast, previously known as Onion Networks, powers the reliable
>> distribution of on-demand video at High Definition-quality levels
>> over the existing internet infrastructure. The software is
> globally
>> used in digital cinema, data outsourcing, consumer electronics
>> devices and professional sports. The company founder, Justin
>> Chapweske, invented the basic grid-based delivery technology in
> 1999
>> and formed Onion Networks in 2001.
>>
>> Media Contact:
>> Paula Gottlob/PGPR; 206-281-5389; PGPR@...
>>
>> Paula Gottlob (PGPR@...)
>> Swarmcast.com
>> 212 2nd Streert Suite 128
>> Minneapolis, MN   55414
>> Phone : 206-281-5389
>>
>
>
>

Hi Axel

I dropped you an e-mail at NQGC.

You can get me on

44 1506 845124

0r

44 7770 843087

Best Regards

Chris

--- In decentralization@yahoogroups.com, "Axel P. Mustad" <axel@...>
wrote:
>
> Dear Chris,
>
> I cannot find any contact information on you. I could need some
help in
> setting up an LLP (in UK) for the formation of a co-operative
innovation
> (knowledge sharing / IPR managment) and trading system (securities
> exchange with belonging clearinghouse mechanism) for community based
> collaborative development of nanotechnologies for sustainable and
futute
> energy technologies. We are are a very large group of universities,
> industry networks (trade bodies), finance institutions and
government
> (Nordic, EU, OECD) bodies looking into cooperation. Please contact
me
> directly at axel@... and leave me a telephone number as I want to
> speak with you. Thanks..
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Axel P. Mustad
>

Justin,

As they say, every dog has its day!!

Finally, the wait has proven to be worth!

Congratulations and keep us posted of new developments post funding.

All the best to Swarmcast.

Regards,

Rajesh
http://samooha.sourceforge.net


Quoting Justin Chapweske <justin@...>:

> To all those that remember Swarmcast from the OpenCola days, we're back!
>
>
> http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/default.cfm?
> Action=ReleaseDetail&ID=14660
>
> Swarmcast Receives More Than $5 Million in Funding
>
> Minneapolis, MN  55414
>
> November 30 2006
>
> Swarmcast Receives More Than $5 Million in Funding from Strategic
> Japanese Investors
>
> Swarmcast Technology to Enable High-Definition Broadband TV Channels
> in Japan and the U.S.
>
> MINNEAPOLIS (November 30, 2006) - Swarmcast, the Minneapolis- and
> Tokyo-based inventor of grid network content distribution via the
> Internet, today announced that its parent company, Onion Networks
> Japan, has recently completed a venture round, raising more than US
> $5 million capital. The funding round was led by two prestigious
> Japanese investment firms: Bridge Capital Fund (BCF), a Nikko
> antfactory- and Nikko Cordial-sponsored venture fund, and Nippon
> Venture Capital (NVCC). The additional capital will be used to
> advance the company's growth and to launch new services for
> delivering commercial High Definition-quality video over the Internet
> in the US and Japan.
>
> "We are pleased to have completed this venture financing round with
> these highly regarded Japanese venture capital firms," said Justin
> Chapweske, president and CEO of Swarmcast. "We are now extremely well-
> positioned to capitalize on our mature products as demand for HD over
> broadband becomes ubiquitous."
>
> Swarmcast currently licenses its technology for distribution of 250GB
> Hollywood movies to North America's largest network of digital
> cinemas. Swarmcast is now offering its services for the delivery of
> large HD media files to consumers over standard broadband.
>
> For the rapidly growing broadband video industry, the company's
> Swarmcast technology enables video delivery sites and content owners
> to offer HD-quality video over the existing internet infrastructure
> at dramatically reduced bandwidth costs without the need for
> additional integration or infrastructure.
>
> "Swarmcast holds the last piece of the puzzle to commercialize
> entertainment over the Internet for the masses," said BCF Managing
> Partner Yoav Keidar. “Their innovative software platform will enable
> extreme differentiation for content providers by way of providing
> full-screen HDTV over the Internet and we are excited to invest and
> advance this ground-breaking technology.”
>
> About Swarmcast
> Swarmcast, previously known as Onion Networks, powers the reliable
> distribution of on-demand video at High Definition-quality levels
> over the existing internet infrastructure. The software is globally
> used in digital cinema, data outsourcing, consumer electronics
> devices and professional sports. The company founder, Justin
> Chapweske, invented the basic grid-based delivery technology in 1999
> and formed Onion Networks in 2001.
>
> Media Contact:
> Paula Gottlob/PGPR; 206-281-5389; PGPR@...
>
> Paula Gottlob (PGPR@...)
> Swarmcast.com
> 212 2nd Streert Suite 128
> Minneapolis, MN   55414
> Phone : 206-281-5389
>
> Announce or discover P2P conferences on the P2P Conference Wiki at
> http://www.neurogrid.net/twiki/bin/view/Main/PeerToPeerConferences
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

CALL FOR PAPERS

Sixth International Workshop on Agents and Peer-to-Peer Computing (AP2PC
2007)
http://p2p.ingce.unibo.it/
held in AAMAS 2007
International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems
Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.
from 14 May - 18 May 2007.

CALL FOR PAPERS
Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing has attracted enormous media attention,
initially spurred by the popularity of file sharing systems such as
Napster, Gnutella, and Morpheus. More recently systems like BitTorrent
and eDonkey have continued to sustain that attention. New techniques
such as distributed hash-tables (DHTs), semantic routing, and Plaxton
Meshes are being combined with traditional concepts such as Hypercubes,
Trust Metrics and caching techniques to pool together the untapped
computing power at the "edges" of the internet. These new techniques and
possibilities have generated a lot of interest in many industrial
organizations, and has resulted in the creation of a P2P working group
on standardization in this area. (http://www.irtf.org/charters/p2prg.html).

In P2P computing peers and services forego central coordination and
dynamically organise themselves to support knowledge sharing and
collaboration, in both cooperative and non-cooperative environments. The
success of P2P systems strongly depends on a number of factors. First,
the ability to ensure equitable distribution of content and services.
Economic and business models which rely on incentive mechanisms to
supply contributions to the system are being developed, along with
methods for controlling the "free riding" issue. Second, the ability to
enforce provision of trusted services. Reputation based P2P trust
management models are becoming a focus of the research community as a
viable solution. The trust models must balance both constraints imposed
by the environment (e.g. scalability) and the unique properties of trust
as a social and psychological phenomenon. Recently, we are also
witnessing a move of the P2P paradigm to embrace mobile computing in an
attempt to achieve even higher ubiquitousness. The possibility of
services related to physical location and the relation with agents in
physical proximity could introduce new opportunities and also new
technical challenges.

Although researchers working on distributed computing, MultiAgent
Systems, databases and networks have been using similar concepts for a
long time, it is only fairly recently that papers motivated by the
current P2P paradigm have started appearing in high quality conferences
and workshops. Research in agent systems in particular appears to be
most relevant because, since their inception, MultiAgent Systems have
always been thought of as collections of peers.

The MultiAgent paradigm can thus be superimposed on the P2P
architecture, where agents embody the description of the task
environments, the decision-support capabilities, the collective
behavior, and the interaction protocols of each peer. The emphasis in
this context on decentralization, user autonomy, dynamic growth and
other advantages of P2P, also leads to significant potential problems.
Most prominent among these problems are coordination: the ability of an
agent to make decisions on its own actions in the context of activities
of other agents, and scalability: the value of the P2P systems lies in
how well they scale along several dimensions, including complexity,
heterogeneity of peers, robustness, traffic redistribution, and so
forth. It is important to scale up coordination strategies along
multiple dimensions to enhance their tractability and viability, and
thereby to widen potential application domains. These two problems are
common to many large-scale applications. Without coordination, agents
may be wasting their efforts, squander resources and fail to achieve
their objectives in situations requiring collective effort.

This workshop will bring together researchers working on agent systems
and P2P computing with the intention of strengthening this connection.
Researchers from other related areas such as distributed systems,
networks and database systems will also be welcome (and, in our opinion,
have a lot to contribute). We seek high-quality and original
contributions on the general theme of "Agents and P2P Computing". The
following is a non-exhaustive list of topics of special interest:

- Intelligent agent techniques for P2P computing
- P2P computing techniques for MultiAgent Systems
- The Semantic Web, Semantic Coordination Mechanisms and P2P systems
- Scalability, coordination, robustness and adaptability in P2P systems
- Self-organization and emergent behavior in P2P networks
- E-commerce and P2P computing
- Participation and Contract Incentive Mechanisms in P2P Systems
- Computational Models of Trust and Reputation
- Community of interest building and regulation, and behavioral norms
- Intellectual property rights in P2P systems
- P2P architectures
- Scalable Data Structures for P2P systems
- Services in P2P systems (service definition languages, service
discovery, filtering and composition etc.)
- Knowledge Discovery and P2P Data Mining Agents
- P2P oriented information systems
- Information ecosystems and P2P systems
- Security issues in P2P networks
- Mobile P2P
- Pervasive computing based on P2P architectures (ad-hoc
networks,wireless communication devices and mobile systems)
- Grid computing solutions based on agents and P2P paradigms
- Legal issues in P2P networks

PANEL
The theme of the panel will be "Wireless P2P Networks and Agents in the
Mobile Information Society". Recently, the P2P paradigm is embracing
mobile computing and ad-hoc networks in an attempt to achieve even
higher ubiquitousness. The possibility of data and services related to
physical location and the relation with Agents and sensors in physical
proximity could introduce new opportunities and also new technical
challenges. Such dynamic environments, which are inherently
characterized by high mobility and heterogeneity of resources like
devices, participants, services, information and data representation,
pose several issues on how to search and localize resources, how to
efficiently route traffic, up to higher level problems related to
semantic interoperability and information relevance. The panel will
involve short presentations by the panelists followed by a discussion
session involving the audience.

IMPORTANT DATES
Abstract submission: 5th January 2007
Paper submission: 5th February 2007
Acceptance notification: 5th March 2007
Camera-ready submission: 19th March 2007
Workshop: 14-15th May 2007
Camera ready for post-proceedings: 20th July 2007

REGISTRATION
Accomodation and workshop registration will be handled by the AAMAS 2007
organization along with the main conference registration.

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
Previously unpublished papers should be formatted according to the
LNCS/LNAI author instructions for proceedings and they should not be
longer than 12 pages (about 5000 words including figures, tables,
references, etc.).

Please submit your papers through the Microsoft conference management
system: https://msrcmt.research.microsoft.com/AP2PC07/CallForPapers.aspx

Particular preference will be given to those papers that build upon the
contributions of papers presented at previous AP2PC workshops. In
addition, please carefully consider the issues that our reviewers will
be considering. Some of the issues our reviewers will be considering can
be seen in this form:

http://www.neurogrid.net/ap2pc2007/review-form.html

At the very least we would encourage all authors to read the abstracts
of the papers submitted to previous workshops - available from the links
below:

http://p2p.ingce.unibo.it/2002/
http://www.springeronline.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,11855,5-40109-22-2991818-0,00.\
html
http://p2p.ingce.unibo.it/2003/
http://www.springeronline.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,11855,5-40109-22-37060961-0,00\
.html
http://p2p.ingce.unibo.it/2004/
http://www.springer.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,11855,5-147-22-90285401-0,00.html

http://p2p.ingce.unibo.it/2005/

Particular preference will be given to both novel approaches and those
papers that build upon the contributions of papers presented at previous
AP2PC workshops.

PUBLICATION
Accepted papers will be distributed to the workshop participants as
workshop notes. As in previous years post-proceedings of the revised
papers (namely accepted papers presented at the workshop) will be
submitted for publication to Springer in Lecture Notes in Computer
Science series.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Program Co-chairs

Sonia Bergamaschi,
Dept. of Science Engineering,
University of Modena and Reggio-Emilia,
via Vignolese, 905 - 41100 Modena Italy
Tel. +39 059 2056132 - Fax +39 059 2056126
E-mail: bergamaschi.sonia@...

Zoran Despotovic
Future Networking Lab,
DoCoMo Communications Laboratories Europe,
Landsberger Str. 312
80687 Munich, Germany
E-mail: despotovic@...

Sam Joseph
Dept. of Information and Computer Science,
University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA
1680 East-West Road, POST 309, Honolulu, HI 96822
E-mail: srjoseph@...

Gianluca Moro
Dept. of Electronics, Computer Science and Systems (DEIS)
University of Bologna
Via Venezia, 52
I-47023 Cesena (FC), Italy
Tel. +39 0547 339237, Fax +39 0547 339208
Email: gmoro@...


PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Karl Aberer, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
Alessandro Agostini, ITC-IRST, Trento, Italy
Makoto Amamiya, Kyushu University, Japan
Djamal Benslimane, Universite Claude Bernard, France
Sonia Bergamaschi, University of Modena and Reggio-Emilia, Italy
M. Brian Blake, Georgetown University, USA
Costas Courcoubetis, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece
Alfredo Cuzzocrea, University of Calabria, Italy
Vasilios Darlagiannis, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany
Zoran Despotovic, DoCoMo Communications Laboratory, Germany
Maria Gini, University of Minnesota, USA
Francesco Guerra, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
Chihab Hanachi, University of Toulouse, France
Sam Joseph, University of Hawaii, USA
Frank Kamperman, Philips Research, The Netherlands
Tan Kian Lee, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Birgitta Ko"nig-Ries, University of Karlsruhe, Germany
Zakaria Maamar, Zayed University, UAE
Alberto Montresor, University of Bologna, Italy
Gianluca Moro, University of Bologna, Italy
Jean-Henry Morin, Korea University, South Korea
Elth Ogston, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Andrea Omicini, University of Bologna, Italy
Thanasis Papaioannou, Athens University of Economics & Business, Greece
Paolo Petta, Austrian Research Institute for AI, Austria,
Dimitris Plexousakis, Institute of Computer Science, FORTH, Greece
Martin Purvis, University of Otago, New Zealand
Omer F. Rana, Cardiff University, UK
Douglas S. Reeves, North Carolina State University, USA
Thomas Risse, Fraunhofer IPSI, Darmstadt, Germany
Claudio Sartori, University of Bologna, Italy
Heng Tao Shen, University of Queensland, Australia
Francisco Valverde-Albacete, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
Maurizio Vincini, University of Modena and Reggio-Emilia, Italy
Fang Wang, British Telecom Group, UK
Steven Willmott, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain
Bin Yu, North Carolina State University, USA

**Abstract Deadline extended to 24th January**

**Apologies if you receive this more than once**

CALL FOR PAPERS

Sixth International Workshop on Agents and Peer-to-Peer Computing (AP2PC
2007)
http://p2p.ingce.unibo.it/
held in AAMAS 2007
International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems
Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.
from 14 May - 18 May 2007.

CALL FOR PAPERS
Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing has attracted enormous media attention,
initially spurred by the popularity of file sharing systems such as
Napster, Gnutella, and Morpheus. More recently systems like BitTorrent
and eDonkey have continued to sustain that attention. New techniques
such as distributed hash-tables (DHTs), semantic routing, and Plaxton
Meshes are being combined with traditional concepts such as Hypercubes,
Trust Metrics and caching techniques to pool together the untapped
computing power at the "edges" of the internet. These new techniques and
possibilities have generated a lot of interest in many industrial
organizations, and has resulted in the creation of a P2P working group
on standardization in this area. (http://www.irtf.org/charters/p2prg.html).

In P2P computing peers and services forego central coordination and
dynamically organise themselves to support knowledge sharing and
collaboration, in both cooperative and non-cooperative environments. The
success of P2P systems strongly depends on a number of factors. First,
the ability to ensure equitable distribution of content and services.
Economic and business models which rely on incentive mechanisms to
supply contributions to the system are being developed, along with
methods for controlling the "free riding" issue. Second, the ability to
enforce provision of trusted services. Reputation based P2P trust
management models are becoming a focus of the research community as a
viable solution. The trust models must balance both constraints imposed
by the environment (e.g. scalability) and the unique properties of trust
as a social and psychological phenomenon. Recently, we are also
witnessing a move of the P2P paradigm to embrace mobile computing in an
attempt to achieve even higher ubiquitousness. The possibility of
services related to physical location and the relation with agents in
physical proximity could introduce new opportunities and also new
technical challenges.

Although researchers working on distributed computing, MultiAgent
Systems, databases and networks have been using similar concepts for a
long time, it is only fairly recently that papers motivated by the
current P2P paradigm have started appearing in high quality conferences
and workshops. Research in agent systems in particular appears to be
most relevant because, since their inception, MultiAgent Systems have
always been thought of as collections of peers.

The MultiAgent paradigm can thus be superimposed on the P2P
architecture, where agents embody the description of the task
environments, the decision-support capabilities, the collective
behavior, and the interaction protocols of each peer. The emphasis in
this context on decentralization, user autonomy, dynamic growth and
other advantages of P2P, also leads to significant potential problems.
Most prominent among these problems are coordination: the ability of an
agent to make decisions on its own actions in the context of activities
of other agents, and scalability: the value of the P2P systems lies in
how well they scale along several dimensions, including complexity,
heterogeneity of peers, robustness, traffic redistribution, and so
forth. It is important to scale up coordination strategies along
multiple dimensions to enhance their tractability and viability, and
thereby to widen potential application domains. These two problems are
common to many large-scale applications. Without coordination, agents
may be wasting their efforts, squander resources and fail to achieve
their objectives in situations requiring collective effort.

This workshop will bring together researchers working on agent systems
and P2P computing with the intention of strengthening this connection.
Researchers from other related areas such as distributed systems,
networks and database systems will also be welcome (and, in our opinion,
have a lot to contribute). We seek high-quality and original
contributions on the general theme of "Agents and P2P Computing". The
following is a non-exhaustive list of topics of special interest:

- Intelligent agent techniques for P2P computing
- P2P computing techniques for MultiAgent Systems
- The Semantic Web, Semantic Coordination Mechanisms and P2P systems
- Scalability, coordination, robustness and adaptability in P2P systems
- Self-organization and emergent behavior in P2P networks
- E-commerce and P2P computing
- Participation and Contract Incentive Mechanisms in P2P Systems
- Computational Models of Trust and Reputation
- Community of interest building and regulation, and behavioral norms
- Intellectual property rights in P2P systems
- P2P architectures
- Scalable Data Structures for P2P systems
- Services in P2P systems (service definition languages, service
discovery, filtering and composition etc.)
- Knowledge Discovery and P2P Data Mining Agents
- P2P oriented information systems
- Information ecosystems and P2P systems
- Security issues in P2P networks
- Mobile P2P
- Pervasive computing based on P2P architectures (ad-hoc
networks,wireless communication devices and mobile systems)
- Grid computing solutions based on agents and P2P paradigms
- Legal issues in P2P networks

PANEL
The theme of the panel will be "Wireless P2P Networks and Agents in the
Mobile Information Society". Recently, the P2P paradigm is embracing
mobile computing and ad-hoc networks in an attempt to achieve even
higher ubiquitousness. The possibility of data and services related to
physical location and the relation with Agents and sensors in physical
proximity could introduce new opportunities and also new technical
challenges. Such dynamic environments, which are inherently
characterized by high mobility and heterogeneity of resources like
devices, participants, services, information and data representation,
pose several issues on how to search and localize resources, how to
efficiently route traffic, up to higher level problems related to
semantic interoperability and information relevance. The panel will
involve short presentations by the panelists followed by a discussion
session involving the audience.

IMPORTANT DATES
Abstract submission(EXTENDED: 24th January 2007
Paper submission: 5th February 2007
Acceptance notification: 5th March 2007
Camera-ready submission: 19th March 2007
Workshop: 14-15th May 2007
Camera ready for post-proceedings: 20th July 2007

REGISTRATION
Accomodation and workshop registration will be handled by the AAMAS 2007
organization along with the main conference registration.

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
Previously unpublished papers should be formatted according to the
LNCS/LNAI author instructions for proceedings and they should not be
longer than 12 pages (about 5000 words including figures, tables,
references, etc.).

Please submit your papers through the Microsoft conference management
system: https://msrcmt.research.microsoft.com/AP2PC07/CallForPapers.aspx

Particular preference will be given to those papers that build upon the
contributions of papers presented at previous AP2PC workshops. In
addition, please carefully consider the issues that our reviewers will
be considering. Some of the issues our reviewers will be considering can
be seen in this form:

http://www.neurogrid.net/ap2pc2007/review-form.html

At the very least we would encourage all authors to read the abstracts
of the papers submitted to previous workshops - available from the links
below:

http://p2p.ingce.unibo.it/2002/
http://www.springeronline.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,11855,5-40109-22-2991818-0,00.\
html
http://p2p.ingce.unibo.it/2003/
http://www.springeronline.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,11855,5-40109-22-37060961-0,00\
.html
http://p2p.ingce.unibo.it/2004/
http://www.springer.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,11855,5-147-22-90285401-0,00.html

http://p2p.ingce.unibo.it/2005/

Particular preference will be given to both novel approaches and those
papers that build upon the contributions of papers presented at previous
AP2PC workshops.

PUBLICATION
Accepted papers will be distributed to the workshop participants as
workshop notes. As in previous years post-proceedings of the revised
papers (namely accepted papers presented at the workshop) will be
submitted for publication to Springer in Lecture Notes in Computer
Science series.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Program Co-chairs

Sonia Bergamaschi,
Dept. of Science Engineering,
University of Modena and Reggio-Emilia,
via Vignolese, 905 - 41100 Modena Italy
Tel. +39 059 2056132 - Fax +39 059 2056126
E-mail: bergamaschi.sonia@...

Zoran Despotovic
Future Networking Lab,
DoCoMo Communications Laboratories Europe,
Landsberger Str. 312
80687 Munich, Germany
E-mail: despotovic@...

Sam Joseph
Dept. of Information and Computer Science,
University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA
1680 East-West Road, POST 309, Honolulu, HI 96822
E-mail: srjoseph@...

Gianluca Moro
Dept. of Electronics, Computer Science and Systems (DEIS)
University of Bologna
Via Venezia, 52
I-47023 Cesena (FC), Italy
Tel. +39 0547 339237, Fax +39 0547 339208
Email: gmoro@...


PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Karl Aberer, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
Alessandro Agostini, ITC-IRST, Trento, Italy
Makoto Amamiya, Kyushu University, Japan
Djamal Benslimane, Universite Claude Bernard, France
Sonia Bergamaschi, University of Modena and Reggio-Emilia, Italy
M. Brian Blake, Georgetown University, USA
Costas Courcoubetis, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece
Alfredo Cuzzocrea, University of Calabria, Italy
Vasilios Darlagiannis, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany
Zoran Despotovic, DoCoMo Communications Laboratory, Germany
Maria Gini, University of Minnesota, USA
Francesco Guerra, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
Chihab Hanachi, University of Toulouse, France
Sam Joseph, University of Hawaii, USA
Frank Kamperman, Philips Research, The Netherlands
Tan Kian Lee, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Birgitta Ko"nig-Ries, University of Karlsruhe, Germany
Zakaria Maamar, Zayed University, UAE
Alberto Montresor, University of Bologna, Italy
Gianluca Moro, University of Bologna, Italy
Jean-Henry Morin, Korea University, South Korea
Elth Ogston, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Andrea Omicini, University of Bologna, Italy
Thanasis Papaioannou, Athens University of Economics & Business, Greece
Paolo Petta, Austrian Research Institute for AI, Austria,
Dimitris Plexousakis, Institute of Computer Science, FORTH, Greece
Martin Purvis, University of Otago, New Zealand
Omer F. Rana, Cardiff University, UK
Douglas S. Reeves, North Carolina State University, USA
Thomas Risse, Fraunhofer IPSI, Darmstadt, Germany
Claudio Sartori, University of Bologna, Italy
Heng Tao Shen, University of Queensland, Australia
Francisco Valverde-Albacete, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
Maurizio Vincini, University of Modena and Reggio-Emilia, Italy
Fang Wang, British Telecom Group, UK
Steven Willmott, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain
Bin Yu, North Carolina State University, USA

Whatever happened to P2P and Decentralisation as a design pattern?

Wordpress and Movable type became Myspace and Facebook.

RSS became Google Reader

Distributed email servers and desktop clients have become Google Mail

Posting a Quicktime file on your site has become YouTube

Running your own shoutcast server has become Last.FM tag radio

IRC has become Twitter

This post was prompted by Twitter and Twitter's success. If you were
going to design this from scratch knowing what they know now, would you
really use a pull architecture, centralised web system and Ruby on
Rails?

Did we all forget about Decentralisation or has the pendulum just swung
out to the opposite end and is due to swing back any time now?

ps. I know those questions are strawmen and the truth is that (almost)
everything that has ever happened is still happening.

--
Julian Bond  E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com  M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
Webmaster:           http://www.ecademy.com/     T: +44 (0)192 0412 433
Personal WebLog:     http://www.voidstar.com/    skype:julian.bond?chat
                      *** Just Say No To DRM ***

I've been thinking of it like viscosity.  So the issue isn't how
decentralized the web-based systems are but how long it takes the
overal landscape to change from one shape to another.


On Mon, 23 Apr 2007, Julian Bond wrote:
> Whatever happened to P2P and Decentralisation as a design pattern?
>
> Wordpress and Movable type became Myspace and Facebook.
>
> RSS became Google Reader
>
> Distributed email servers and desktop clients have become Google Mail
>
> Posting a Quicktime file on your site has become YouTube
>
> Running your own shoutcast server has become Last.FM tag radio
>
> IRC has become Twitter
>
> This post was prompted by Twitter and Twitter's success. If you were
> going to design this from scratch knowing what they know now, would you
> really use a pull architecture, centralised web system and Ruby on
> Rails?
>
> Did we all forget about Decentralisation or has the pendulum just swung
> out to the opposite end and is due to swing back any time now?
>
> ps. I know those questions are strawmen and the truth is that (almost)
> everything that has ever happened is still happening.

I find it interesting that these questions come from the webmaster for
the "facebook for sales managers" of ecademy ;)  Surely just from your
own experience with that massive monolithic structure of centralized
control you must be in a great position to answer your own questions! :)

And whereas I'm not in any position, I will tell you what I was sent
two days ago, from Nokia -- I no longer own a nokia phone, but I did
and I still wish I had waited for the N95 instead of jumping on the
RIM bandwagon (talk about central control! And what goes wrong when it
fails!) -- anyway, in that little developers' newsletter they were
announcing the N95 and just let it slip that the dev-kit for that
phone will include "web2.0 extensions" to enable cellphone apps that
can use "ajax" like micro-services.

If you ask me, I'd say all your observations are because the Internet
as we knew it is largely dead, and /real/ communications have moved
into the portable pocket-computing space, a space that is very sadly
locked in to a hand-ful of vendors, but nonetheless, I think that is
where the next generation of P2P will happen.  yeah, it may be in a
gmail/gtalk framework, but that's just the transport: the _components_
of the messages can and do come from /anywhere/

--
Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym at teledyn.com> =============================
www.teledyn.com - blog.teledyn.com - justus.teledyn.com - sbp.teledyn.com
======================= The present moment is a powerful goddess (Goethe)

On 4/23/07, Julian Bond <julian_bond@...> wrote:
>
>  Whatever happened to P2P and Decentralisation as a design pattern? ...

true, "everything that has ever happened is still happening".  the
apparent decline of peer to peer and decentralization is to be
expected.  this is a familiar history repeating, again.

rather than decline, i'd call it a quiet maturation.  beyond this
centralized focus on web 2.0; the clever amalgamation of collaborative
interaction and distributed infrastructure, decentralization is
waiting for renewed relevance and pervasiveness.

like the viscosity Lucas described, the next decentralized iteration
is going to sweep across the digital landscape like a force of nature,
fluid and startling.

these distributed and centralized services (web 2.0 in the myriad
forms you listed)  bring memories of prodigy and compuserve.  they
slayed the hierarchical videotex oligopolies of our time, but they too
will fade into the commodity landscape.

something new is coming; not faster networks, faster computers, faster
searches.  nor richer content, richer variety, richer interaction.

these are but the same overdone refinements of the familiar that the
distributed centralized behemoths want to perpetuate until they
believe themselves.

if you look carefully you can see the shape of it on the horizon.
many networks, many devices, many intuitive roles with a subdued
presence in daily life, a contrast to the demanding, tiring, and
increasingly less useful silos of web 2.0 walled gardens.  an
infrastructure of datascape tools (though you'll barely recognize them
as such) employed as a means to your desired ends (not an end in
themselves) that can only be supported via authentic and pervasive
decentralization.

decentralization will return, though perhaps under future aliases more
appropriate to the capabilities achieved than the technical
architecture underneath...

I've been thinking of it like viscosity. So the issue isn't how
decentralized the web-based systems are but how long it takes the
overal landscape to change from one shape to another.

On Mon, 23 Apr 2007, Julian Bond wrote:
> Whatever happened to P2P and Decentralisation as a design pattern?
>
> Wordpress and Movable type became Myspace and Facebook.
>
> RSS became Google Reader
>
> Distributed email servers and desktop clients have become Google Mail
>
> Posting a Quicktime file on your site has become YouTube
>
> Running your own shoutcast server has become Last.FM tag radio
>
> IRC has become Twitter
>
> This post was prompted by Twitter and Twitter's success. If you were
> going to design this from scratch knowing what they know now, would you
> really use a pull architecture, centralised web system and Ruby on
> Rails?
>
> Did we all forget about Decentralisation or has the pendulum just swung
> out to the opposite end and is due to swing back any time now?
>
> ps. I know those questions are strawmen and the truth is that (almost)
> everything that has ever happened is still happening.

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

Mitra <mitra.ardron@...> Tue, 24 Apr 2007 19:14:59
>I think Decentralisation was great - in theory - in practice most of
>the apps were unreliable, and so were only picked up by enthusiasts, or
>by those trying to hide something (file-sharing etc). The ones that
>worked well (Skype etc) were mostly based on server mediated P2P. I
>can't think of a pure P2P play that worked well enough to be picked up
>by regular consumers.
>
>I think part of it was the "religious zeal" of many of the P2P
>proponents, purety of the model became more important than delivering
>working applications.

Shades of grey. There were very very few systems that were ever
completely p2p and decentralised. But putting some of the function out
on the edge where it took advantage of CPU and bandwidth was a good
thing. As was letting anyone and everyone run servers.

>Another - not unrelated issue, was that many of the P2P companies
>(including Flycode where I was CTO) were looking for their second round
>just about at the time of the dot-bomb.

And there was an outpouring of code just after the layoffs when lots of
programmers carried on because they had an itch to scratch and wrote a
lot because they had no pointy haired managers diverting them.

>Wordpress and MT didn't offer the ease of creation of sites that
>Myspace and Facebook did.

There are some competing pressures here. The big money is in big
aggregation. But sometimes that works against using a better
architecture.

>I've seen several people  - includingly stunningly competent sysadmins
>try - and fail - to get Jabber servers to work properly with Jabber
>clients.

Same goes for email servers ;)

It's tempting to do a roll call of systems that have a big P2P element
and are reasonably successful and another of systems that are limited by
their centralisation where they really should be more de-centralised.
But that's for a blog post I think.

I guess the worry is that a few very big GiantCos will make us dependent
on very centralised systems. Specifically Google for this decade.
However if they turn into dinosaurs there's always plenty of mammals
eating at their heels.

The other worry is that there's a generation of programmers growing up
who reach for Ruby on Rails and a centralised server design on the basis
that the scaling problem is solvable and can be dealt with later.
Preferably, after the exit strategy.

--
Julian Bond  E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com  M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
Webmaster:           http://www.ecademy.com/     T: +44 (0)192 0412 433
Personal WebLog:     http://www.voidstar.com/    skype:julian.bond?chat
                      *** Just Say No To DRM ***

Oh, I don't know: P2P for communication is doing just fine: look at
Skype and the emerging efforts in the IETF to define a P2P version of SIP.

There are already commercial IP phone systems that use P2P between
phones rather than a centralized server: Avaya's one-X and Aastra's
VentureIP (both based on technology developed by Nimcat Networks, which
was subsequently bought by Avaya).  There's also Popular Telephony's
Peerio, and then there's SIPeerior Technologies who develop P2P SIP stacks.

Rob

Julian Bond wrote:
>
> Whatever happened to P2P and Decentralisation as a design pattern?
>
> Wordpress and Movable type became Myspace and Facebook.
>
> RSS became Google Reader
>
> Distributed email servers and desktop clients have become Google Mail
>
> Posting a Quicktime file on your site has become YouTube
>
> Running your own shoutcast server has become Last.FM tag radio
>
> IRC has become Twitter
>
> This post was prompted by Twitter and Twitter's success. If you were
> going to design this from scratch knowing what they know now, would you
> really use a pull architecture, centralised web system and Ruby on
> Rails?
>
> Did we all forget about Decentralisation or has the pendulum just swung
> out to the opposite end and is due to swing back any time now?
>
> ps. I know those questions are strawmen and the truth is that (almost)
> everything that has ever happened is still happening.
>
> --
> Julian Bond E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
> Webmaster: http://www.ecademy.com/ <http://www.ecademy.com/> T: +44
> (0)192 0412 433
> Personal WebLog: http://www.voidstar.com/ <http://www.voidstar.com/>
> skype:julian.bond?chat
> *** Just Say No To DRM ***
>
>


--
Robert Welbourn
24 Wilde Road
Waban, MA 02468-1325
USA
Tel +1-617-558-0182 -- Mobile +1-617-510-5354

Hi Julian

Essentially they all were swallowed up and developed after
being "corporatised" / made proprietary.

Which raises the old chestnut about the inability of "open" projects
to develop and the requirement for what Michael Bauer called "Open
Corporations"

http://www.michaelbauer.com/view.php?object=opencorporations

Now what I have been working on these last few years

www.opencapital.net

has been the potential of US LLC's and UK Limited Liability
Partnerships ("LLP's") to operate as "Open" Corporate entities.

NOT "Corporations", however, with their inherent conflict between the
owners and their agents, the managers.

I believe it is now possible to utilise this simple and infinitely
flexible new UK legal wrapper globally for the "peer to peer"
financial applications of which initiatives such as

www.zopa.com and www.opromark.com

are pioneers which are unscalable due to the broken enterprise model
they use.

The generic "Open Corporate" LLP/LLC structure I advocate has the
following members, each of which is a stakeholder group, itself using
either formal (eg a company "Mem and Arts") or informal (club rules)
legal protocols.

A "Trustee"/ "Custodian" Member which "owns" the relevant property
(eg intellectual property);

An Investor Member (who invests money or "money's worth" in goods
services, time or the value of the IP:

An "Operator"/ "Manager" member who operates the enterprise;

A Capital User/ Customer Member who uses the property.

The revenues (if there are any - it is open to IP producers to waive
any charges) from the customer are shared between the Investor and
Operator in agreed proportions.

Now the outcome is essentially an enterprise model that is
BOTH "closed" - in that only Members may use the property -
AND "open", since anyone who agrees to the LLP protocol may join.

Such an LLP is cross border (I've done this twice now), "tax
transparent" ("pass through" in the US) and works simply and
effectively. It gives rise to a legal XML ("law as code") which links
disparate jurisdictions rather than disparate hardware and software.

It offers a way in which software and other projects may be developed
on a "Not for Loss" basis, as Dr Yunus of Grameen Bank fame has it.
Or possibly "Profit for Purpose" (as some Danes I am working with
have it).

Such an LLP does not own anything; do anything; employ anyone; borrow
anything. It is not an "Organisation" but a "framework" within which
individuals "self organise".

It is revolutionary, and it is not surprising that the number of
LLP's in the UK has doubled in 2 years (not that anyone has the least
idea what people are using them for).


Best Regards

Chris Cook




--- In decentralization@yahoogroups.com, Julian Bond
<julian_bond@...> wrote:
>
> Whatever happened to P2P and Decentralisation as a design pattern?
>
> Wordpress and Movable type became Myspace and Facebook.
>
> RSS became Google Reader
>
> Distributed email servers and desktop clients have become Google
Mail
>
> Posting a Quicktime file on your site has become YouTube
>
> Running your own shoutcast server has become Last.FM tag radio
>
> IRC has become Twitter
>
> This post was prompted by Twitter and Twitter's success. If you
were
> going to design this from scratch knowing what they know now, would
you
> really use a pull architecture, centralised web system and Ruby on
> Rails?
>
> Did we all forget about Decentralisation or has the pendulum just
swung
> out to the opposite end and is due to swing back any time now?
>
> ps. I know those questions are strawmen and the truth is that
(almost)
> everything that has ever happened is still happening.
>
> --
> Julian Bond  E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com  M: +44 (0)77 5907
2173
> Webmaster:           http://www.ecademy.com/     T: +44 (0)192 0412
433
> Personal WebLog:     http://www.voidstar.com/    skype:julian.bond?
chat
>                      *** Just Say No To DRM ***
>

[I'm not sure why, but this didn't show up when I sent it by email -
so I'm posting it via the web interface this time - if it shows up a
2nd time later, please excuse the duplication]


Julian Bond wrote:
> Whatever happened to P2P and Decentralisation as a design pattern?
>
> Wordpress and Movable type became Myspace and Facebook.
>
> RSS became Google Reader
>
> Distributed email servers and desktop clients have become Google Mail
>
> Posting a Quicktime file on your site has become YouTube
>
> Running your own shoutcast server has become Last.FM tag radio
>
> IRC has become Twitter
>
> This post was prompted by Twitter and Twitter's success. If you were
going to design this from scratch knowing what they know now, would
you really use a pull architecture, centralised web system and Ruby on
Rails?
>
> Did we all forget about Decentralisation or has the pendulum just
swung out to the opposite end and is due to swing back any time now?
>
> ps. I know those questions are strawmen and the truth is that
(almost) everything that has ever happened is still happening.
>
>
a few thoughts that have been kicking around in the back of my brain
for a while:

- from an end user perspective, the hosted software is very appealing:
it's easy, supported, etc., etc.

- this is particularly true for  network applications - email lists,
blogs, etc. - it's simply easier to use Yahoo groups than to set up
and maintain a list server or a copy of wordpress (and it's hard to
argue with zero cost)

- the downsides are less immediately apparent - quick, easy, free
tends to trump loss of privacy and the risk that your service provider
might go away or change their terms of service

Which keeps leading me to the question of: is there a third
alternative to doing it yourself vs. going with a commercial service?
The basic answer I keep coming around to is some combination of:

- open source software (obviously)

- to a degree, a generation of truly decentralized, self-healing,
applications that don't require servers (think DHT-based storage)

- a cooperative computing grid of some sort - i.e., a decentralized
application server environment for hosting things that work better in
a server-based environment - and a class of applications that can
operate on top of these (think the original listserver, where a list
could be spread across multiple, cooperating servers) - of course
security, ownership, and such become serious challenges

- an organizational/financial model that supports it all (e.g., a
cooperative of local ISPs, web developers, and others who are very
close to the end users)

personally, I provide list and web services to a number of local PTOs,
churches, community groups, and so forth - a lot of it pro-bono (as
the result of formerly running a development/hosting shop and still
having a couple of servers sitting in a data center) -- I'd love to
find a few collaborators to gain some economies of scale

Miles Fidelman

Julian Bond wrote:
> Whatever happened to P2P and Decentralisation as a design pattern?
>
> Wordpress and Movable type became Myspace and Facebook.
>
> RSS became Google Reader
>
> Distributed email servers and desktop clients have become Google Mail
>
> Posting a Quicktime file on your site has become YouTube
>
> Running your own shoutcast server has become Last.FM tag radio
>
> IRC has become Twitter
>
> This post was prompted by Twitter and Twitter's success. If you were
> going to design this from scratch knowing what they know now, would you
> really use a pull architecture, centralised web system and Ruby on
> Rails?
>
> Did we all forget about Decentralisation or has the pendulum just swung
> out to the opposite end and is due to swing back any time now?
>
> ps. I know those questions are strawmen and the truth is that (almost)
> everything that has ever happened is still happening.
>
>
a few thoughts that have been kicking around in the back of my brain for
a while:

- from an end user perspective, the hosted software is very appealing:
it's easy, supported, etc., etc.

- this is particularly true for  network applications - email lists,
blogs, etc. - it's simply easier to use Yahoo groups than to set up and
maintain a list server or a copy of wordpress (and it's hard to argue
with zero cost)

- the downsides are less immediately apparent - quick, easy, free tends
to trump loss of privacy and the risk that your service provider might
go away or change their terms of service

Which keeps leading me to the question of: is there a third alternative
to doing it yourself vs. going with a commercial service?

The basic answer I keep coming around to is some combination of:

- open source software (obviously)

- to a degree, a generation of truly decentralized, self-healing,
applications that don't require servers (think DHT-based storage)

- a cooperative computing grid of some sort - i.e., a decentralized
application server environment for hosting things that work better in a
server-based environment - and a class of applications that can operate
on top of these (think the original listserver, where a list could be
spread across multiple, cooperating servers) - of course security,
ownership, and such become serious challenges

- an organizational/financial model that supports it all (e.g., a
cooperative of local ISPs, web developers, and others who are very close
to the end users)

personally, I provide list and web services to a number of local PTOs,
churches, community groups, and so forth - a lot of it pro-bono (as the
result of formerly running a development/hosting shop and still having a
couple of servers sitting in a data center) -- I'd love to find a few
collaborators to gain some economies of scale

Miles Fidelman

>>>>> "J" == Julian Bond <julian_bond@...> writes:

     J> ... But putting some of the function out on the edge where it
     J> took advantage of CPU and bandwidth was a good thing. As was
     J> letting anyone and everyone run servers.

Unfortunately most of the very large ISPs took to denying their
subscribers the right to run servers ... with the apparent exception
of those virus-installed mail-relay servers that organized crime
deploys for their spam networks, and if you want a truly distributed
highly-profitable killer-app that was pure P2P, whether we like it or
not, I suppose these spam engines would be it :(

Prior to 9/11 I remember getting in a heated discussion with 3rd world
internet policy makers because they wanted to roll out One-Way
internet to their populations.  Specifically, when I made the comment
that Internet isn't much use as a television replacement, I was told
by the delegate for Syria that I was being naive and "didn't
understand their culture" -- I thought at the time that I did
understand their no-edgetalk propaganda model, but now here today I
see the vast majority of my own culture not only locked into the same
consume-only model, but not caring in the least that this Internet
thing should be like this.

     J> The other worry is that there's a generation of programmers
     J> growing up who reach for Ruby on Rails and a centralised server
     J> design on the basis that the scaling problem is solvable and
     J> can be dealt with later.  Preferably, after the exit strategy.

Heh. Were it not for the companies I know where this is open design
policy, it would be funny.  Sadly, though, your comment is all too true.

--
Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym at teledyn.com> =============================
www.teledyn.com - blog.teledyn.com - justus.teledyn.com - sbp.teledyn.com
======================= The present moment is a powerful goddess (Goethe)

Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@...> Wed, 25 Apr 2007 09:27:05
>>>>>> "J" == Julian Bond <julian_bond@...> writes:
>
>    J> ... But putting some of the function out on the edge where it
>    J> took advantage of CPU and bandwidth was a good thing. As was
>    J> letting anyone and everyone run servers.
>
>Unfortunately most of the very large ISPs took to denying their
>subscribers the right to run servers

I wasn't thinking of servers at home. But that anyone with a bit of
hosting can run a server.

--
Julian Bond  E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com  M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
Webmaster:           http://www.ecademy.com/     T: +44 (0)192 0412 433
Personal WebLog:     http://www.voidstar.com/    skype:julian.bond?chat
                      *** Just Say No To DRM ***