Search results on sale on Kazaa
 

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- tg ;)

just wanted to say: that sux. is this why i am having trouble getting fast search results and downloads that rarely go above 1kbs on cable modem!?!

no, altnet files have nothing to do with download performace. my guess is that your cable company is throttling port 1214 (kazaa's default port).

- jaan

not the answer i was wanting to hear, jaan ( i was hoping it was something i could change like a corrupt registry entrie or something) but you are probably right.

is there any way to make kazaa use a nonstandard port like 80 or 8080, etcetera?

thanks,

-kento :) :tu:

not really. most kazaa users are on port 1214, so in order to connect to others you must go through that port anyway.

however, i hear that sharman is working on a new version that is supposed to address various concerns and suggestions from users. whether the port throttling problem is one of them remains to be seen.

- jaan

Could this be the reason why I was getting some artist named "Johnny Virgil" as the first result everytime I searched for anything through it the last week or so? :con:

thanks, jaan.

hi kris :)

hi kento :W:

i'm not sure, but this is quite possible if a) johnny virgil is an artist signed up with altnet, and b) your searches contained a keyword that he has purchased.

- jaan

Ref-johnny virgil is he any good ?
bet no-one has DL him,as he was not what you were looking for
plus this is just a way to get ppl used to using Altnet. "see it not as bad as ppl make out" well we will have have to see!
tip of the ice etc............

wonder how much they want for the word "beatles"? :D

- js.

bet he sucks big time.. just do a search.. read the description field.. and the tracks names..


M.F.
Celine Mariah Barbra Whitney
The Sea of Touch and Go


:BL:

Another interesting thing was, when you search for "Johnny Virgil" you get a result for "Prodigy" :con: Go figure..

Gee, buying search results on a P2P network won't do the artists any good if the RIAA "jams" the network, or seeds it with corrupted songs.

The RIAA is pooping its own bed. Oh well.

yup, i see your point. however, the law of big numbers dictates that somebody, somewhere, is downloading johnny virgil as we speak. besides, even if people don't download you, having your name exposed to literally millions of music fans is definitely worth something, isn't it.

sure. but that's what you're supposed to do after you've made a huge PR blunder like bde/altnet did. stick around and demonstrate that you really are OK.

well, i can definitely think of words with greater potential. though i'm not sure i want to explicitly list them here if you catch my drift... :)

however, on a more serious note, associating your music with keywords your potential fans are likely to use sounds to me like a great way to expand your audience. not to mention that p2p systems are in pretty much unique position to do such marketing, which will no doubt take even more effective forms as the technology matures. think of creating worldwide p2p communities based on musical taste, and using their help to spread the word about upcoming bands they are all likely to appreciate....

then again, i'm one of the programmers of altnet, so i'm obviously biased. i just honestly believe that the p2p networks have a much greater role to play in the future than being a "global harddrive", and altnet takes the first babysteps towards that role.

- jaan

Hi jaan, nice to have you posting here! :W:

True. AudioGalaxy and SoulSeek have already done this to a degree and demonstrated that it works in practice.

I agree. Many p2p networks (Gnutella and FastTrack among them) have been so far mostly content-oriented and lacked the basic tools for community formation. I would expect this to change soon as the benefits of community-oriented p2p become more obvious to the masses.

- tg ;)

Eww.... think of what this could evolve into... search for 'sex' in Kazaa and you get 14 pr0n popups :)

If AltNet still routes its crap through www.altnetp2p.com and www.altnet.com this is pretty easy to block though.

And older Kazaa versions won't support this. (Just in case, everyone knows where to get old Kazaa versions, right?? ;))

i liked the wording on this, jaan...but there is still just something creepy about it. ("buying search results in a p2p program") it just creeps me out. sorry. :(

-kento

well it sure sounds good when you put it that way jaan but i can't help thinking that in a world of limited search returns (say 100 for kazaa) using up some or most of them for what are essentially paid commercials leaves little left over for the actual reason we're using a p2p. :)

- js.

actually, no. altnet results are delivered via separate mechanism (they basically come from altnet server), so they don't really compete with kazaa's results for slots.

also, i seem to remember that there's a hard limit on how many paid results can be added to each search, but i'm not sure.

- jaan

i'll have to defer to you here jaan as i've not yet had any time w/the altnet-kazaa system. still my point stands, if not specifically with your program. for instance i wouldn't want to slog thru pages of ads each time i use a search engine just to get to the info i need, nor would I like seeing 50 returns from britney spears latest brain numbing, soul crushing neo-hippie sugar smack when i'm looking for say "60's psychedelia" with my (previously) favorite p2p.

sure, potentially a great promotional tool but potentially counter productive, even destructive as well. it should be done with utmost care and/or it should be optional. the risk here of alienating content providing users is very high. as always, it's in the details. :)

- js.

The only problem with this is that even if you have blocked altnet, but the supernode you connect to hasn't, you may get these results anyway! :m: I got those prodigy results when I was searching for Alias episodes (the ABC series with Jennifer Garner.) It was a music video (.wmv file no less), so I don't understand the connection between the two!?! What's worse is that they're low bitrate files in sucky formats, labelled with phrases like "Brought to you by Prodigy! Buy the CD from blahblah.com you stinking thieves!!!" (OKay, maybe I exaggerrated a bit but you get the idea. :D )

Personally I don't use KL for music, but this technique annoys me even more than the Prodigy themselves! It's a good idea to let the users generate hype, in a non-spam kind of way, by sharing themed collections etc. (BTW I also got these Prodigy results when searching for Enterprise episodes?! :uu: )

yep.

- js.

In theory, yes. In practice NO.

Why ? The placement costs money. It's only a matter of time before some non-anally retentive label realises that this is a great way of getting their next stars known to one and all...and they have something that the struggling artists don't have : A budget.

Even in the early 80s, when Mute Records was a relatively struggling indie label, I'm sure they'd have had no problem with paying vast amounts to push Depeche Mode, if they felt it was a viable option.

Let's face it, back then a lot of record labels happily gave their work to pirate radio stations, even though they realised a lot of pirate listeners probably taped whatever was broadcast. I know I did. :)

Market forces will simply mean that we'll end up with commercial concerns (i.e. record labels. Even just one minor label with some serious cash will wreck Kazaa) pushing their stuff via the still illicit p2p methods.

It sounds a bit wacked, but I can see it happening.

What better way to control p2p - if you can't do it through force, or through the courts...do it through waving a huge wad of cash at the developers ?

Good points, willow. If there is a limited channel to buy attention on a p2p network (in the form of search results) and if it also proves out to work, it will be quickly saturated. In such a situation the channel owner will naturally raise the prices, and those with big PR budgets will end up dominating the channel. Try to expand the channel too much and people will start hating it and leave the network. Who wants to get 50 % spam in search results.

The solution? What SA_Dave said. Let people own the promotion channels too, and base them on peer trust and shared interest in good music (instead of money). Then you don't need to push any search results to get new artists known in p2p communities. When people know that the recommendations come from other music lovers like themselves instead of industrial PR departments, they will be glad to read such recommendations. Especially if the recommended stuff is freely available. :AF:

- tg ;)

correct. however, that's the thing with p2p systems -- they are pieces of software, which means advertising can - theoretically - be incredibly flexible.

so instead of bidding for a general ad slot that would reach all the users on the system (ie, a tv-style ad), the band/publisher could target only those 0.1% of people (based on communities, explicitly declared interests, existing collections, etc.) that are likely to be interested in their music/films/etc. which should be affordable for anyone.

note that such ad-tailoring needs not to have the privacy issues associated with targeted ads either, because all ad personlalisation can be done locally.

- jaan

God, wouldn't it be just GREAT if things were like in Demolition Man and there would be a separate radio station for 24/7 commercials, a separate Internet for 100% spam/ads/popups/crap, and a separate P2P program for sponsored search results, so normal stations/online folks/P2P users wouldn't have to put up with it? :)

Never mind, just dreaming of Utopia 2003 ;)

This approach sounds very reasonable for a commercial one – but then you are clearly a very reasonable person and understand also the community point of view, jaan. :) On the other hand those who decide marketing policies tend to treat p2p communities as commercial target groups only, and the results are what we have seen so far: loads of intrusive spyware and adware pushed to people’s computers with no respect for online privacy. Kazaa, as we know, is one of the worst examples.

If paid search results are used, I think the minimum requirement is to make it clear to the user which results are paid and which originate from the community. Paid results are just one form of advertising, and advertisements should not be disguised as something else. Another important thing is that there should be no blocking of search results from the community due to commercial interests. For example, if a promoter wants to push some works of artist X from her servers, the community members should still be free to share to each other whatever stuff from artist X they happened to have.

- tg ;)

thanks, tg :beer:

all good points.

however, as i've seen the "dark side" myself (ie talked to people who make those decisions), i can tell you that all unpopular decisions basically stem from three possible sources: 1) need to finance operations, 2) legal considerations, and 3) limited development bandwidth.

- jaan