Broadcatching:
the Savior of Independent Entertainment!
In the near future, two popular Internet technologies will work together to beat big media
companies at their own game. Here’s how the revolution will transpireB
roadcatching” may sound like slang
for picking up girls at the local bar,
but the term is intended as a play
on the word broadcasting , the familiar
method of beaming television and radio
programming to eager audiences. Of
course, only major networks and their
affiliates have the equipment, resources,
and FCC approval to do so, leaving inde-
pendent filmmakers and content produc-
ers groveling for air time from risk-averse
media conglomerates.
But independent filmmakers, musi-
cians, and developers are beginning to
see the potential in using two Internet
applications—BitTorrent file sharing and
RSS syndication—to shatter one of the
last barriers to distributing content over
the Internet: bandwidth costs. Let’s take
a look at how the two technologies work,
how they integrate together,
and the future implications of
this serendipitous union.FIRST, TAKE BITTORRENT...
BitTorrent is an evolutionary
take on the P2P file sharing
principle. While current file
sharing technologies require
each user to have a complete
copy of a given file before
they can share it with oth-
ers, BitTorrent breaks the file
down into small portions called
“shards” and allows a user to
share whatever part they have
already downloaded, even if
their own download is still in progress.
This technology excels at delivering largefiles that are in demand; the more people
who initialize a download of a given
file, the more shards that become avail-
able to everyone else, resulting in faster
downloads for everyone. As an example
of BitTorrent’s usefulness, when Blizzard
released the beta of its massively multi-
player game World of Warcraft , the compa-
ny used BitTorrent to manage distribution.
An inherent limitation of the BitTorrent
technology, however, is that users have to
find a “torrent link,” essentially a file loca-
tor, for each file they want to download,
which can be
a tedious and frustrating process.NOW ADD RSS...
RSS is a simple technology that can alert
users when updates are made to their
favorite web sites. Users install an RSS“aggregator” and subscribe to a web site’s
RSS feed. The aggregator then checks the
feed at preset intervals and alerts the user
when new content is made available.
This technology has proven especially
popular with web logs, but many other
entities, such as news providers, have
embraced it as well.AND VOILA—BROADCATCHING
LIBERATES MEDIA!
RSS eliminates the problem of locating
torrent links by allowing torrent provid-
ers (known as trackers) to broadcast links
to torrents via an RSS feed. Theoretically,
a user could subscribe to the feed and get
alerted the moment a torrent becomes
available, “catching” the link as it is
“broadcast.” Further integration would
allow the RSS aggregator to automatically
begin the BitTorrent download
for you.
The magic of BitTorrent
is that it spreads the band-
width load to every user who
downloads the file, making it
an attractive and inexpensive
alternative to traditional means
of file distribution. Imagine sub-
scribing to broadcatches of the
Sundance Film Festival show-
ings, or—more significantly—an
indie sitcom produced by four
guys in a New York loft.
When this catches on, dis-
tributing syndicated content
will become as viable for Joe-
next-door as it is for Fox, NBC,
and the Playboy Channel.Quick Start Start
The beginning of the magazine,
where articles are smallUsing RSS, you can get information
from the web pushed to your desktop.Got huge files to distribute,
but little money for
bandwidth? No problem.12 MAXIMUMPC JUNE 2004