BitTorrent Has Smart New Approach to IPTV, Forrester's James McQuivey Tells Beet.TV

Peer-to-peer is inevitably going to become a primary distribution platform for online video. Joost looms large. But, BitTorrent, with some 150 million installs is the gorilla in the closet. But can you watch this stuff on a TV set, easily? These P2P companies are going to have to solve this since we will be watching more and more video on televisions and other consumer electronics devices. Just last week, BitTorrent announced the release of an SDK for hardware manufacturers. The new software will provide companies with the means to connect files to various devices. To sort this out, I asked Forrester analyst James McQuivey for his take on this development and other trends to watch in his space. Here's what he told me: BitTorrent’s new hardware approach is a smart move, precisely because everybody else is trying to build a path from the PC or the Net connection to the TV. VUDU will start selling a box that uses P2P to bring pay per view movies to your TV. AppleTV does this now, though without the P2P architecture. Joost is likely to go this route, too. So it’s important to try to get there soon. Success will be entirely dependent on signing up the right electronics partners. Above is my interview with BitTorrent president an co-founder Ashwin Navin. Ashwin talks about the new entertainment dowload service that was launched earlier this year. The new service is now offering some 10,000 titles from 40 major content providers. Mike Arrington has an interesting take on the evolving IPTV world and emerging YouTube competitors. See this video on Beet.TV: http://www.beet.tv/2007/06/bittorrent-has-.html

Blip | June 30, 2007

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