VC funding for torrent clients ...

[vinodkumarvc]

... is like using actual wads of currency to fuel a steam engine train.

I guess The Train will probably move a few metres after you shove in a couple of million dollars. But where's the cash flow? And where are the profits

Comments

[vinodkumarvc]

to make money off torrent technology, you'll first need to figure out a way to reach a sizeable proportion of PCs. and then u can start thinking of monetization. all that is easier done for a behemoth with a thriving ecosystem, than a startup.

the unkindest cut for pando is the fact that they can't claim much IP on their technology, to help them protect their interests. there's no real differentiator that i can see yet.

[inthing]

Yea, even I keep wondering as to where the money will come in all these "Web 2.0" companies .. is the Web becoming socialist ? :D

There was a recent discussion on slashdot on a similar topic, which said the current current trend of funding is akin to the pre-bubble days and genuine players are really getting lost in the huge number of photo-sharing, blogging and such ventures. I am just crossing my fingers !

[vinodkumarvc]

is the Web becoming socialist ? :D

that's an extremely interesting question. capitalism works well only in an environment that exhibits information asymmetry. patents etc are a way of maintaining artificial asymmetry.

the web is removing most of this asymmetry from our lives, enabling us to take more 'complete' decisions. so it wouldnt be surprising if the evolution of the web leads to a socialist (or more possibly, communist) society. but instead of communist governments, we'd probably have portals and search engines - some benevolent, some malevolent.

Pando -- definately different

[anonymous]

You've missed the point about Pando. Its not a BitTorrent client. It uses BitTorrent to transfer files between people's machines but thats where the similarity ends. You can't download .torrents. The app lets you create and email people you know (by their email address) .pando files which are bascially extended .torrents. They also cache a copy of files on their "supernodes" (servers) so recipients can download files even if the sender is offline. Its like a web/p2p hybrid for emailing large files.

I use it. It works. Thats enough about that.

Re: Pando -- definately different

[vinodkumarvc]

do u c performance differences between torrent and pango downloads?

[vinodkumarvc]

the most important thing in business is to understand ur competition, and more widely, your business' ecosystem. what is it that pango wants to do that other incumbent operators with large ecosystems cannot?

pango has no economic moat, and hence no competitive advantage.

this is where pango can get smart and get acquired. if it has single-digit number of employees, it is an easy option too.

[vinodkumarvc]

PS: Pando, not pango ;-)

oops! pando .. somehow pango seemed to be more familiar. i guess it was this stuff from college.

getting acquired is not really easy. there are a lot of factors to be considered, not the least of which is the cost/employee and cost/customer that the acquiring company is paying.