Peer-to-peer has finally reached a critical mass to the point where large players can no longer ignore it as a valuable distribution method.

Over the past year, those on the forefront of online video have been buying up P2P companies. Most of these acquisitions have been low-key, with little explanation of how they would be integrated into existing infrastructure.The sensitivity of the content industry to the lack of control and ease of transfer of copyrighted material continues to threaten media organizations that had previously controlled distribution.

Many of these networks now exist as a back-door solution for data-transfer that eliminates the need for traditional CDNs. Most rights holders previously took a position of brute opposition to the mere existence of P2P file transfers due to its subversion of traditional media control. But their efficiency and widespread use among end-users cannot be questioned.

Here are some of the major acquisitions and initiatives that have occurred in the past year

• Kontiki (Verisign - March ‘06)
• Grouper (Sony Pictures - August ‘06)
• Amicina, Antepo (Adobe - January ‘07)
• Wurld Media (Roo - February ‘07)
• Red Swoosh (Akamai - April ‘07)
• LiveStation (Microsoft-Skinkers Partnership)

There is a good deal of speculation that we will see more widespread use of a P2P-CDN Hybrid Architecture of content delivery in the future. These developments will play a big role in the future of online distribution and should be watched closely.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 at 7:57 pm and is filed under IPTV, P2P. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.