Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Blog Torrent Beta Released

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the certain-people-are-nervous dept.

chatooya writes "Downhill Battle has released the first public preview of Blog Torrent a "simplified" BitTorrent package that they developed because, "Making it easy to blog large video files means that people can share their home movies the same way they share their photos or writings." Features include: integrated torrent creation and upload, simple non-MySQL installation, and an RSS feed for every tracker. Currently Windows only on the client side, but Mac and Linux versions are in the works."

42 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. sounds like a cool idea but by Ckwop · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Would you host a torrent for someone else's blog? I dunno, sharing a torrent for a music album or a linux distro is a bit different to someones home movie.

    I'd love to see it take off but I'm yet to be convinced.

    Simon.

    1. Re:sounds like a cool idea but by jacksonj04 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I had the same thought - the BitTorrent ideal is that lots of people share the same file. The chances of readerships for blogs with videos (mainly ones read rarely) neing large enough for this to work is slim to none. Especially since the chances of everybody being online at once are even more remote.

      --
      How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
    2. Re:sounds like a cool idea but by Champaign · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I probably wouldn't, but I'd certain be willing (forced) to share with others AS I downloaded it. This would certainly be useful.

      Plus it lets the blog owner use their home connection bandwidth instead of their blog/server bandwidth...

    3. Re:sounds like a cool idea but by lightknight · · Score: 2, Funny

      Dear God, no.

      Look, blogs (weblogs) suck ass. Their only use is to stroke the egos of a bunch of narcissistic losers ("A webpage about me! YAAAAAAAY! Let's tell the entire world about me, because they care. I'm such a wonderful person, let me give you 100000 reasons why! And then I can tell you about my day!").

      Blogs fuck up Google. I get 100 irrelevant hits from blogs, and about 10 relevant hits. They just increase the noise to signal ratio. It's like spam, just make it stop!

      And now, you want to ruin Bit Torrent by making it easy for bloggers to use it? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!?!

      --
      I am John Hurt.
    4. Re:sounds like a cool idea but by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Funny

      The chances of readerships for blogs with videos (mainly ones read rarely) neing large enough for this to work is slim to none.

      Just wait till Natalie Portman or Jenifer Lopez start video-P2P-blogging and you'll see the readership increase quite a bit.

      --
      "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    5. Re:sounds like a cool idea but by Zorilla · · Score: 3, Funny

      Error downloading hot-grits.mpeg: unable to connect to tracker

      Damn...

      --

      It would be cool if it didn't suck.
    6. Re:sounds like a cool idea but by ZorinLynx · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Blame the assymetry of most high speed connections. For instance, I have a whole 3 megabits downstream, but only 384Kbps upstream. This means that if I get even half my connection speed downloading a torrent, my ratio will still be pathetic.

      Sure, you can let torrents seed for a while, and I frequently do. But a 3 or 4GB torrent has to seed for days before even coming close to a 1:1 ratio.

      I wish residential connections weren't so assymetrical. BitTorrent would be amazing if everyone had 3000/1000 or even 1500/1500 connections.

      -Z

    7. Re:sounds like a cool idea but by realdpk · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Worse yet, due to the assyemtry, if you let BitTorrent use that full 384Kbps upstream, all other Internet use will be abysmally slow. So you're best off capping it at half that, or so.

      A good compromise would be for the cable companies to uncap inter-customer connections, and keep the cap on for anything that goes to the Internet. Probably too expensive tho.

    8. Re:sounds like a cool idea but by realdpk · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not quite +5. He thinks that this will, somehow, ruin BitTorrent? Maybe +3 Reactionary?

    9. Re:sounds like a cool idea but by Champaign · · Score: 2, Interesting
      All you need is for the original seeder to be responsible for their torrents (keep seeding) and this is avoided. And that would certainly be the case if someone was distributing media through their blog/website. If they can't be bothered to keep seeding it, why are they trying to distribute it in the first place?

      What I think would be useful would be a super easy way to seed a bunch of torrents at once, and throttle the bandwidth on them, so you could provide a tiny trickle to many different torrents and prevent exactly the starvation you're talking about. This is probably already available but I haven't seen a client that does it.

    10. Re:sounds like a cool idea but by timeOday · · Score: 4, Informative
      Worse yet, due to the assyemtry, if you let BitTorrent use that full 384Kbps upstream, all other Internet use will be abysmally slow. So you're best off capping it at half that, or so.
      You can get around that, at least on Linux, using LARTC. I have set up my box so "miscellaneous" packets (p2p, email, etc) are only sent if there are NO ssh or web browsing packets ready to go (script). There may be a few remnants of wondershaper in there, but I think mine is better :)

      It does work. With this in place the effect of running BitTorrent (or whatever) in the background is tiny.

    11. Re:sounds like a cool idea but by realdpk · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The USENET and movie examples are somewhat different however, in that with both you have the washed and unwashed masses together in one "room" (heh). With BitTorrent there are no rooms, every BitTorrent installation is independant, so one person throwing up a BT of their home videos (porn, likely) doesn't detract from someone else using it to grab ISOs.

      On the other point, I guess I haven't had to search for torrents before. If it's something that the server operators would benefit from having a torrent, it's something announced somewhere big like Slashdot. Otherwise you're just downloading the whole file from them anyways, typically.

    12. Re:sounds like a cool idea but by Taladar · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Popular blogs would have an advantage here and for unpopular ones the one original Bittorrent Seed would be enough and not much worse than hosting it on Webspace.

      --
      Linux is not Windows
  2. How can this work on a small scale? by Fluidic+Binary · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If bittorrent works off many users sharing bandwidth at once, I fail to see how this would help most blogs that don't have huge readerships.

    Any retorts?

    1. Re:How can this work on a small scale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well, theoretically the overhead of bittorrent is not much higher than that of simply running an FTP server (assuming the tracker server is also seeding the file, which would be necessary in this situation). So, if only one person is downloading the file, then it would be better to just run an FTP server. but, as soon as a second person joins the torrent, the first person starts uploading to them, offloading some of the bandwidth burden from the tracker server.

      pretty simple

    2. Re:How can this work on a small scale? by HyperChicken · · Score: 2, Informative

      I think two people on at the same time isn't likely for home movies type of things. And I doubt that the average Windows user would bother leaving BitTorrent running after the file is downloaded.

      This idea is flawed.

      --
      Free of Flash! Free of Flash!
    3. Re:How can this work on a small scale? by jerometremblay · · Score: 2, Informative

      What if it IS likely that two people will be there at the same time? If I post yesterday's party videos, I potentially have as many downloads as there were people.

      Unless of course you always film yourself alone.

      The idea is not flawed.

    4. Re:How can this work on a small scale? by hackstraw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If bittorrent works off many users sharing bandwidth at once, I fail to see how this would help most blogs that don't have huge readerships.

      But without p2p, you would have to upload the whole file to a server, tell your friends and family where the file can be downloaded. Which means that you would have server space with very generous bandwidth limits, etc, etc.

      With a torrent, you create the torrent, register it with a tracker, and post on your blog or in an email, and you never have to think about it, nor would you have to wait for the upload to finish first before telling your friends & family.

      This rocks.

    5. Re:How can this work on a small scale? by TrevorB · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sometimes images become shared between thousands of blog users as the meme of the week.

      For instance, this link has been making the rounds last week:

      http://img40.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img40=feuerfreimo vi e.swf

      You could easily find that link on a thousand LiveJournals. It's not quite slashdotting, but files often get locked out because they're shared on bandwidth limited servers.

      So don't think home movies. Think shared movies. Not the MPAA DivX kind, but more like weebls stuff or mpeg clips of turkeys attacking George Bush's crotch or something... The kind of thing that's embedded in a page.

  3. Is it really easy enough? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When you compare it to something like Dijjer, which requires zero effort to publish content, while it might be easier than BitTorrent - is it easy enough?

  4. New P2P app by glrotate · · Score: 2, Informative

    Suprnova.org is doing a beta of their own p2p app. keep an eye out.

  5. Application? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The only real use of this, is of course for the amateur porn blogs. Then it's a killer app!

    1. Re:Application? by FrYGuY101 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Oh?

      Remind me to avoid the blogs you visit... I'm not into Snuff films...

      Oh, you meant... ah. I see now.

      --
      "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."

      - Seneca
  6. just what i was looking for by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I made a bunch of home movies with my wife on my honeymoon, now i finally have a way to share with the world how lucky and well endowed i am!

  7. I could check it myself, but by empaler · · Score: 2, Funny

    what features would it have? I'm using Shareaza atm and am very content with that. Can't see anything that would change that...

  8. Why is this a "blog"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does anybody else see this as a misuse of the word "blog"? Sounds like they just combined two buzzwords together (bittorrent and blog) in the hopes that it would increase the popularity of their product. And since it ended up on the front page of Slashdot, it appears to have worked.

  9. User mindset by FrenZon · · Score: 2, Funny

    An admirable work, congratulations to them. Though doesn't this sort of encourage users to think that it's right to download and run small executables in order to get to bigger files? We should probably be teaching users to be a bit more discerning about what they click 'Open' on.

    I'm nitpicking, of course

    1. Re:User mindset by holmes+wilson · · Score: 4, Informative
      Hey, Holmes from Downhill Battle here.

      We definitely thought about that, and other people have raised that concern. But here's how we view it:

      First, the only person who gets an executable to download is a first time user. Once Blogtorrent is installed, the tracker detects that and just serves you up regular torrent files (or blogtorrent files for uploaders). So we aren't creating any habits here.

      And considering the first time user, they fall into one of two camps. Either they're an experienced user who understands what's bad about running an executable from an untrusted website, or they're not.

      If the former, they'll be happy to install Blogtorrent if the tracker is running on a site they trust, while if it's on "war3z d00d's p2p moviez page" they probably won't. And they won't have to. It will be enough to check out Blogtorrent.com and download it there.

      And if the latter is true (our user doesn't know what's bad about running executables from shady sites) then their computer is probably already a petri dish of virii trojans, adware, and virii, or it will get that way soon. And the majority of such users would have a hard enough time wrapping their heads around how Bittorrent works that they'd just give up without the executable installer.

      Deciding to *not* give these users an executable installer just means deciding (on their behalf) that they should continue their life in adware purgatory, but without that video clip or album they wanted. We wouldn't really be protecting anybody by not providing this feature.

      And I know Bittorrent is pretty easy to install, but trust us, we've talked to so many people who have tried *so* hard to get it and failed miserably. With the executable, anybody who wants a file will end up getting it. And next time they're covered.

  10. In other news... by StarWreck · · Score: 2, Funny

    In other news the proliferation of really cheezy home movies posted to personal Blogs has reached epic poportions. Tonight at 11...

    --
    ... and in the DRM, bind them.
  11. Incorporate into /. by cuteseal · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Perhaps they could incorporate it somehow (don't look at meef, I'm no techie) into slashdot posts -- slashdot certainly has a huge readership, and as soon as an article links to a site, it usually goes belly up.

    Perhaps this could help alleviate the slashdot effect?

    --

    The friendliest digital photography forums on the net!

  12. THTTP by areve · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've wondered about Torrent being an extension to to the http protocol for surfing the web. I wouldn't expect it to happen but if our web browser would just get data from the nearest node instead of the original site then the slashdot effect would be a positive one increasing your sites bandwidth not a negative one.

  13. That really depends... by Senjutsu · · Score: 2, Funny

    on just what kind of home movies we're talking about, doesn't it? *Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge, Nod Suggestively*

  14. LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now non-Mysql has become a feature? Just some years ago every project bragged about supporting MySQL! ;)

    1. Re:LOL by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Supporting MySQL is great. Requiring MySQL sucks, as most users don't have it installed, let alone configured, and automated install scripts are notoriously good at messing up complex servers' config files anyway...

      --
      "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    2. Re:LOL by holmes+wilson · · Score: 2, Informative
      And as far as the MySQL support goes, that's definitely coming. We want to integrate Blogtorrent with the Drupal/Civicspace CMS real soon, and part of that will be rewriting it to use a database instead of flat files.

      Holmes
      Downhill Battle

  15. Ideal for podcasting by brdweb · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Adam Curry and Dave Winer have already been thinking about ways to better integrate bittorrent into some rss readers and blog tools. It's not hosting your blog itself, but rather your podcast or show which takes up the vast majority of available bandwidth. This allows the 'small guy' that has talent to compete with some of the big broadcasters out there. At least on the 'net.

  16. Amateur Porn by colmore · · Score: 2, Funny

    This is going to be used for amateur porn right? As I understand it BitTorrent needs simultaneous downloads to really function, and who has home movies that a whole lot of people really want to watch?

    Oh yeah, naked people.

    --
    In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
  17. Evolution... by Duncan3 · · Score: 3, Funny

    First we had web pages about peoples cats...

    Then came blogs about peoples cats...

    Now we have videos about peoples cats...

    And still, NOONE CARES! Seriously.

    --
    - Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
    1. Re:Evolution... by Iron+Clad+Burrito · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So sayeth a guy with his own website.

      Blogs are no different from what you have up ("I like shakespeare, I'm a geek, here's stull I think is funny..."). The ONLY difference is that bloggers use software.

      Basically, if you have a webpage with info about you, you can't say squat about weblogs.

  18. How they are called? by gmuslera · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Video Blog = Vlog? Already saw Blikis (Blog+Wiki) and other extrange mix between words, so, there is an standard, compressed way to name them?

  19. Re:Screws up already installed clients by katsushiro · · Score: 3, Informative
    Okay, I know you're trolling, but I'll bite, simply because it really sucks when people make completely false statements about something they know nothing about and then no one calls them on it:

    If you'd bothered to actually take a look at the 'BlogTorrent' thing (I hate the name, by the way, but what can you do?), you'd see that it *DOES* include separately hosting the .torrent for those of us with a favorite Torrent client. In fact, since I actually have it installed on my server and have been trying it out, I can copy and paste the text on the page:

    How do I download a file?

    If you've never used BitTorrent before, just click on the "Easy Downloader" link next to the file you want. Open the Easy Downloader (by clicking "open" in your browser, or by saving it to your Desktop and double clicking on it). That will install the Blog Torrent plugin and begin downloading the file you want. Note: if you already have a BitTorrent client installed, you do not need the Easy Downloader, just click on the .torrent file. (Emphasis added)
    --
    "Two things are infinite: the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the first one." - Albert Einstein
  20. Running EXE files by Clark_Kent · · Score: 2, Informative
    As Holmes pointed out, we've already thought about this issue, and I think we've come up with the most reasonable solution possible. This post explains it nicely:
    To clear things up once and for all: End users only need to download an installer for Blog Torrent ONCE, just as they would for any other Bit Torrent client. After that, they just download torrents. When it comes down to it, any software that's going to be doing downloading will need permission to access the local machine. The best way we can deal with this is make the user deal with the permissions issue as few times as possible in a way that they are familiar with. Giving people an EXE installer once seems to be the best way to achieve this on Windows.