Tribler Combines YouTube, BitTorrent, and Last.fm
Ever wondered why the downloads charts of your average Torrent tracker site are so remarkably similar to box office and DVD sales? Sure, everyone likes Spidey. But the truth is that it’s awfully hard to find niche content on P2P networks.
The Dutch BitTorrent client Tribler aims to solve this problem with Last.fm-style personalization. Tribler suggests new media based on your downloading history. Version 4.0 of the client got released this week. It combines collaborative filters with YouTube browsing — features that have caught the eye of European public broadcasters.
Tribler is a joint research project of the Delft University of Technology and the VU University Amsterdam. It’s part of a multi-year research program called I-Share that is exploring “sharing mechanisms in virtual communities.” I-Share received a whopping 6 million Euros (about $8 million) in funding by the Dutch government. Right now 20 scientists are working on Tribler alone.
So what is all this money spent on? Tribler is essentially a BitTorrent client that can be used for generic Torrent downloads. At the same time, it uses P2P to discover other clients and exchange metadata about downloaded files.
Tribler makes use of this data to generate recommendations, pretty much the same way Last.fm does. You downloaded the same movie as two other people? There’s a good chance that you’ll also like other downloads these folks have in common. The longer a client is connected, the more files and users it is able to discover, and your recommendations get better with every download as well.
The new version of Tribler also incorporates YouTube. Users can search for YouTube clips and watch them with an integrated video viewer. There’s no real connection between YouTube and the social BitTorrent experience yet. So why integrate YouTube in the first place? Tribler team member Freek Zindel gave me this answer:
“With Tribler we want to enable our users to share and interact with content from any source. In the near future we plan to open the Peer to Peer transport layer to content that was previously only available from central servers. This would bring a new level of redundancy, availability and scalability to user generated content.“
A P2P infrastructure for user-generated content that also helps with content discovery? That combination has caught the interest of multiple European broadcasters. Tribler is currently gearing up for a test that is going to involve the video on demand services of Netherlands Public Broadcasting. The team is also in talks with other European public television networks.
Of course Tribler faces the same problems as every other P2P outlet with deals like this. The reality of file sharing isn’t always pretty — or even legal, for that matter. Tribler 4.0 still discovers tons of DVD rips, alongside with porn, warez and TV shows. But it does recommend a fair amount of long tail content, including some Creative Commons-licensed downloads. Zindel doesn’t seem to be too concerned about these issues, saying Tribler’s status as a non-profit organization frees it from “chasing profits.”
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[...] filters with YouTube browsing — features that have caught the eye of European public broadcasters. Continue reading Share/E-mail | Sphere | Print | Topic: Startups | Tags: BitTorrent, Last.fm, p2p, Tribler, [...]
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proxieslist.net on May 22nd, 2007 at 5:30 pm - Permalink
Hi Om,
Excellent article, I will try out this client. You might also want to check out http://divinityMetrics.com who are the providers of “Torrent’s Box Office Charts” to major music companies, Hollywood studios and television companies.
Vicky on May 22nd, 2007 at 5:39 pm - Permalink
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Didn’t the Tribler product originally start out as a streaming P2P client? Is this functionality still built in to the player?
Marco Parente
New York | CacheLogic CDN
Marco Parente on May 23rd, 2007 at 8:55 am - Permalink
Marco, there is some download preview feature built into the client, kind of like the “streaming” feature that Redswoosh’s Foxtorrent offers. I’m not sure what happened to their P2P streaming solution though …
Janko Roettgers on May 23rd, 2007 at 10:14 am - Permalink
[...] [fonte] [fonte] The Tribler il cliente comunitario per BitTorrent by Luca Palli, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. [...]
Video Monte Ceneri » Tribler il cliente comunitario per BitTorrent on May 23rd, 2007 at 12:33 pm - Permalink
[...] NewTeeVee » Tribler Combines YouTube, BitTorrent, and Last.fm (tags: p2p bittorrent tribler collaborativefiltering) [...]
testblog » links for 2007-05-24 on May 23rd, 2007 at 5:26 pm - Permalink
HI,
The streaming component of Tribler is still available, but as a separate download. For the near future we plan to release a new version of the streaming software that works better with the fragmented nature of bittorrent and incentives for progressive downloading. Only when that is working will we bring the MDC technology from the current implementation into the new protocol.
hope this clears it up,
cheers,
Freek Zindel
Freek Zindel on May 24th, 2007 at 12:58 am - Permalink
It would be interesting if Tribler integrated divinity Metrics components and then based on region it showed the content you cared about. But I guess the big win might be for Tribler to put in divinity Metrics components to get in front of all the advertisers divinity Metrics works with
Jane on May 24th, 2007 at 1:54 pm - Permalink
[...] permettere ai nostri utenti di condividere ed interagire con contenuti di qualsiasi tipo” ha detto Freek Zindel, membro del team di sviluppo: “Nel prossimo futuro intendiamo allargare la base [...]
100iso.it » Blog Archive » Tribler, web 2.0 plasmato dal P2P on May 25th, 2007 at 12:19 am - Permalink
Has anyone checked out http://www.reeltime.com it is way better than that tibler thing and I like the player more than joost. what do you think?
UrbanTurbo on May 25th, 2007 at 11:59 am - Permalink
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RazorSharp iPods & Raw Gadgets » Blog Archive » Social Recommendations Meet BitTorrent on Tribler on May 26th, 2007 at 6:50 am - Permalink
[...] is also the head of the Tribler team at Delft University. Tribler is a social BitTorrent client that offers its users collaborative filters to download content matching their taste very much the [...]
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