Peer-to-Peer: Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies

Peer-to-peer seems dangerous because it is, essentially, hugely democratic. All subversion starts with a conversation and peer-to-peer, "the next great thing for the Internet" according to Web guru Lawrence Lessig, facilitates direct communication even more so than the first wave of Internet technologies. Just as those first wave technologies had a number of established constituencies worried about the demonic effects of the Web so peer-to-peer seems to be the new bugbear. The fears are, again, reminiscent of those that we heard before business found out how to fully exploit the potential of the Web and are tinged, often, with a frisson of excitement: peer-to-peer offers a new chance for a new wave of entrepreneurs if they can bring themselves to understand the technology, make it understandable to others, and give it succour in a business context.

Chapters in Andy Oram's invigorating collection by key players, such as Gene Kan of Gnutella, Dan Bricklin cocreator of Visicalc, Tim O'Reilly the publisher and an ever useful history lesson from Nelson Minar and Marc Hedlund, are just some of the highlights from an essential read. --Mark Thwaite

This book challenges the tendency to turn the Internet into a slightly interactive version of television for the purpose of selling products and services offered by large companies. The essays here encourage developers to "return content, choice, and control to ordinary users." The book mostly avoids the question of how to solve the technical search problems of how to do that, but does consider many methods that create communities of limited-purpose interaction (like Napster, SETI@home, Jabber, and Red Rover). The book is not detailed enough to guide software developers, but is helpful for those who want to think about future developments in the Internet from a sociological or public policy perspective.

Tim O'Reilly's essay about p2p as a "meme" (a self-replicating idea, with full credit to Richard Dawkins) is the centerpiece of the book. I suspect that I would have gotten 90 percent of the benefit of reading the whole book by simply looking at that one essay. I suggest that you start with that essay, which explores making p2p the primary operating system for the Internet. The advantages are that more information will be shared, progress will be faster, and the experience will be more interesting.

Dan Bricklin also focuses on the purposes of p2p. "Is the data I want in the database?" He points out (rightly) that p2p is just the associated plumbing to get you the data you want more effectively.

Clearly, the barrier is that laws about intellectual property are obsolete in a p2p environment (as Napster's original success in free copying of music demonstrated). Clearly, people need to get paid for intellectual property, so a new system needs to be developed. I suspect that like the copy machine, this technology will overrun the legal barriers in the meantime. A weakness of this book is that it does not propose solutions for this issue. As I write this, Napster is struggling to comply with various court orders that are slowing down music exchanges.

Unlike many books that espouse a new way of interacting, the essays in the book are realistic about anticipating a world that will continue to have servers but will also allow p2p interactions. Even Napster provides that combination now. As a technical solution, the two are likely to be intertwined in the future.

When you are done with this book, you should also think about ways that you can structure work differently. How can you recruit "volunteers" who will find that the benefits of helping you exceed the costs for them? Such voluntary virtual organizations should become the best way for accomplishing many of our key thinking and problem-solving tasks.

Move beyond the dated paradigms of b2b and b2c to create the highest potential for the future!


This is the future   September 14, 2002
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

a facinating book. I recently did my university disertation on peer to peer networks, and this book was my bible. if you want to know about how peer to peer then buy this book. it covers many issues such as, scalability, performance, accountability, and metadata. As well as this, it also overs the views and theories from experts who have worked on technologies such as napster, gnutella and freenet. i feel that the study of p2p systems will be a major topic in future years, and this book will be held as one of the first great books in this field.


excellent   December 7, 2001
 0 out of 5 found this review helpful

It is encouragimg to find a computer book as entertaining and enthusiastic as this. Covers a broad range of issues and good value for money.


Excellent and excellent.   April 6, 2001
 6 out of 8 found this review helpful

An enlightening read, and one which should set off some alarm bells ringing in the head of the opportunist forward thinker. A good blend and diversity is gained by having multiple, expert authors. However, as the main author concedes, the book could be a lot more but for 'various reasons'. Thin client advocates, ASP owners and even Microsoft should be wary - when people realise the potential for peer-to-peer the power will shift back to the user on the Internet. As the book says - the PC is the dark matter of the Internet. The second chapter citing Napster's example (Clay Shirky) should make us wonder - "why have we just spent a grand on the latest high spec computer, and why is it having such an easy life?" And companies answer this - what would you give to have the customer base that Napster has? Give the servers a rest and let the Internet get back to what it was (and what it could be).