Lets be honest about this one, the majority of people on napster are on there because the music is free.
The only way you're going to get people to pay a subscription is if there are enough people on there to share music. No-one in their right mind is going to cough up the money to find himself (or herself) and 14 other people.
So how on earth are you going to persuade the people to get there in the first place? If 30,000 people suddenly decide to subscribe then the momentum will be there for the project to suceed. But things like that don't happen.
Finally, how are you going to persuade people to join when they realise that Napster are going to be making money out of the songs that they make available and the bandwidth that they waste when someone uploads something?
(Sure, since the majority of stuff isn't theirs rightfully in the first place you could say the money is eventually going to the rightful people, but since no-one has come up with a good description about how thats going to happen)
In short, I can't see it working. People will just give up. Sure there are other things but I doubt the majority of current users will or will ever know about any of them.
I have had a similar problem with About.com (a service I stupidly subscribed to years ago and have never used since).
In a nutshell they keep sending me crap, despite the fact that my mailing preferences are are set to "do not email this to me". This isn't a case of changing my preferences to yes, just ignoring them totally.
I've tried unsubscribing, emailing them polite messages (up until the last three which were progressivily harsher and ruder) and now I just bounce anything I get from them back with a fake "no such email address" message.
I use gnut under Linux and have written a simple script which connects to http://www.gnutellahosts.com/, downloads the top hosts and then fires up gnut with them.
Over the space of the last six months the percentage of network content has dropped from 95% to now only 48.19%.
I think this percentage will drop even more in the next 6 months.
Lets hope that it doesn't suffer from the same problems as Gnutella.
The technology of the Gnutella system is limited by the version that the majority use. In other words, if version 2.0 is out and has some cool new features, it'll be useless if the majority of people are using 1.0 because they won't recognise the new stuff.
An example, say my version of gnutella client can do regular expressions. Throw a regular expression at another (non RE supporting) client and it'll either think its a normal search string (in which case you'll probably get nothing back) or it'll throw it away (so you'll also get nothing back). You can't win.
You can't make people update, if you made v2 not badwards compatible them you'd fragment the network. Napster may be peer to peer but if they release a new client with new features then those people who download it get those features immediately (unless they require someone else with a newer client of course)
My other concern is the spead of searches. Again the network is limited by the majority. With speed its going to be all those people on modems. Have they done any testing on a very large scale? Does anyone know how much faster the network would be without all the people on modems?
In the end, either this will work and be groovy or it'll flop or it'll work for a while, overload and die.
One final thought, you have to wait at least 20 seconds to get a decent number of results back. Are people really prepared to sit their for that long (probably a *lot* longer) in front of their browser for the results? Most research indicates that people who have to wait more than 5 seconds for a webpage to download get bored and go elsewhere.
The reason the gameboy has come out better than the gamegear and other varients is simple:
The console is cheap
The console isn;t big and clunky - it truely is portable
The batteries don't need replacing every 2 hours - you can actually get a decent amount of playing time out of them
The games are cheap - anything from 9 UKP to about 14 UKP
The others failed because they weren't one or more of the above. When you make a portable console you can't have it weighing the same as a brick and eating batteries like there was no tomorrow.
Ninetendo got it right by making something that was portable and useable. Lets hope their new console takes the same approach.
The problem is simple. The whole gnutella project is held up by the program that started it.
It doesn't matter how many people download the 3rd party versions, there are too many people using the original code which basically means that all the new wizzy things that are added won't be available for the majority.
Example: glob matching. I'd love to be able to search for "first*last*.ending" - the original gnutella client doesn't handle this, but the newer ones do. However since the majority of people use the old gnutella client, they'll return either nothing, everything or stuff completely unrelated. Not what I want.
This is where client-server works better. You could update the search method from straight match to glob and it didn't matter that people hadn't updated their clients.
Mind you, there are plenty of downsides to the client-server approach too.
Whether this line of bullshit (other than the blatant lie that Linux only supports SCSI) is prompted by MS to force a Windows install ("We have to test the hardware" is a common chant among OEMs, it happens at Gateway and Micron too)...
Actually I have no problem with a company who, after I've requested an empty HD, install Windows to test everything works - just so long as:
They don't charge me for the Windows licence that i don't want.
I get the HD formatted after their testing.
There is no need for you to be charged for a licence to allow the company to test your machine. Whether you're purchasing 1 or 1000 PC's - if a company won't do what you want, there are plenty of others who will price match and do what you want.
I once wrote "TripleTris" for the Amiga which allowed three (yes! three!) people to play tetris against each other at the same time.
There were several game modes, when you completed a line it either bumped all other players up one or you could nominate someone to be bumped up (which mean't there was a lot of picking on) plus a whole tonne of features.
I wasted a good many hours playing that. Pity I can't code in C++ to save my life. Anyone know of a PC conversion that does that?
(on the subject of newer games: puzzle bobble was always good for some 2-player laughs)
Whilst I applaud the whole idea of swapping files, everyone on the planet knows that the majority of roms are not legal and that the console manufacturers are going to do their damned hardest to shut the thing down.
Nintendo have already publically stated their opinion on emulators and roms and yet the romnet site says:
RomNet is used to transfer video game ROM images that can be played in free game console emulators on your computer just like your favorite video game system, for example Super Nintendo (TM). RomNet uses a Server-Client network with Peer-To-Peer file transfer.
Finally, they're using a client-server approach which means that after months of legal action it can be easily shut down.
Very nice looking. Infact its pretty much the same looking at Outlook.
Hang on. Is that all we are doomed to thesedays? Having Linux programs that look the same as Microsofts? What I mean is, can't we go for a different look at all?
Yes, MS have pilfered ideas from other people and applications - but do we have to go writing Linux applications that look *exactly* the same as Microsofts?
Don't we have any good designers of our own that can come up with something a bit more original? Or are we doomed to just following whatever Mr Gates' company does?
At the end of the day I don't mind it looking the same as Microsofts efforts, but sometimes it would be nice to see a bit of originality break through.
Slashdot Mirror
The only way you're going to get people to pay a subscription is if there are enough people on there to share music. No-one in their right mind is going to cough up the money to find himself (or herself) and 14 other people.
So how on earth are you going to persuade the people to get there in the first place? If 30,000 people suddenly decide to subscribe then the momentum will be there for the project to suceed. But things like that don't happen.
Finally, how are you going to persuade people to join when they realise that Napster are going to be making money out of the songs that they make available and the bandwidth that they waste when someone uploads something?
(Sure, since the majority of stuff isn't theirs rightfully in the first place you could say the money is eventually going to the rightful people, but since no-one has come up with a good description about how thats going to happen)
In short, I can't see it working. People will just give up. Sure there are other things but I doubt the majority of current users will or will ever know about any of them.
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In a nutshell they keep sending me crap, despite the fact that my mailing preferences are are set to "do not email this to me". This isn't a case of changing my preferences to yes, just ignoring them totally.
I've tried unsubscribing, emailing them polite messages (up until the last three which were progressivily harsher and ruder) and now I just bounce anything I get from them back with a fake "no such email address" message.
--
Over the space of the last six months the percentage of network content has dropped from 95% to now only 48.19%.
I think this percentage will drop even more in the next 6 months.
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poke 23606,x (with x being between 0 and 255)
Clue: Something to do with the text
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Is there a UK company that will burn Redhat 7 on CD and ship it out to me at a reasonable price?
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The technology of the Gnutella system is limited by the version that the majority use. In other words, if version 2.0 is out and has some cool new features, it'll be useless if the majority of people are using 1.0 because they won't recognise the new stuff.
An example, say my version of gnutella client can do regular expressions. Throw a regular expression at another (non RE supporting) client and it'll either think its a normal search string (in which case you'll probably get nothing back) or it'll throw it away (so you'll also get nothing back). You can't win.
You can't make people update, if you made v2 not badwards compatible them you'd fragment the network. Napster may be peer to peer but if they release a new client with new features then those people who download it get those features immediately (unless they require someone else with a newer client of course)
My other concern is the spead of searches. Again the network is limited by the majority. With speed its going to be all those people on modems. Have they done any testing on a very large scale? Does anyone know how much faster the network would be without all the people on modems?
In the end, either this will work and be groovy or it'll flop or it'll work for a while, overload and die.
One final thought, you have to wait at least 20 seconds to get a decent number of results back. Are people really prepared to sit their for that long (probably a *lot* longer) in front of their browser for the results? Most research indicates that people who have to wait more than 5 seconds for a webpage to download get bored and go elsewhere.
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The others failed because they weren't one or more of the above. When you make a portable console you can't have it weighing the same as a brick and eating batteries like there was no tomorrow.
Ninetendo got it right by making something that was portable and useable. Lets hope their new console takes the same approach.
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But the majority of people using gnutella probably haven't heard of the site and therefore wouldn't go there and wouldn't download the latest version.
So the rest of the "community" are essentially still held up by them.
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It doesn't matter how many people download the 3rd party versions, there are too many people using the original code which basically means that all the new wizzy things that are added won't be available for the majority.
Example: glob matching. I'd love to be able to search for "first*last*.ending" - the original gnutella client doesn't handle this, but the newer ones do. However since the majority of people use the old gnutella client, they'll return either nothing, everything or stuff completely unrelated. Not what I want.
This is where client-server works better. You could update the search method from straight match to glob and it didn't matter that people hadn't updated their clients.
Mind you, there are plenty of downsides to the client-server approach too.
--
Actually I have no problem with a company who, after I've requested an empty HD, install Windows to test everything works - just so long as:
There is no need for you to be charged for a licence to allow the company to test your machine. Whether you're purchasing 1 or 1000 PC's - if a company won't do what you want, there are plenty of others who will price match and do what you want.
--
There were several game modes, when you completed a line it either bumped all other players up one or you could nominate someone to be bumped up (which mean't there was a lot of picking on) plus a whole tonne of features.
I wasted a good many hours playing that. Pity I can't code in C++ to save my life. Anyone know of a PC conversion that does that?
(on the subject of newer games: puzzle bobble was always good for some 2-player laughs)
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Nintendo have already publically stated their opinion on emulators and roms and yet the romnet site says:
RomNet is used to transfer video game ROM images that can be played in free game console emulators on your computer just like your favorite video game system, for example Super Nintendo (TM). RomNet uses a Server-Client network with Peer-To-Peer file transfer.
Finally, they're using a client-server approach which means that after months of legal action it can be easily shut down.
This is napster all over again.
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Hang on. Is that all we are doomed to thesedays? Having Linux programs that look the same as Microsofts? What I mean is, can't we go for a different look at all?
Yes, MS have pilfered ideas from other people and applications - but do we have to go writing Linux applications that look *exactly* the same as Microsofts?
Don't we have any good designers of our own that can come up with something a bit more original? Or are we doomed to just following whatever Mr Gates' company does?
At the end of the day I don't mind it looking the same as Microsofts efforts, but sometimes it would be nice to see a bit of originality break through.
--Silver
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