[SA_Dave]

Personally, I think it's more important for an app to be cross-platform & backwards compatable. The more people can use it initially, without straining their resources, the better for the network. It might be nice to have cross-network/protocol connectivity, but if you base it on proprietary networks like FastTrack, there's a big risk that they could suddenly alter the protocol or even worse be shut down completely. There's no doubt that this will attract spyware refugees from other clients, and perhaps even generate a lot of interest quickly. There are downsides to this though as TankGirl stated :

Originally posted by TankGirl
It will also be easier for you to address and fix scalability problems if the user base grows steadily instead of explosive growth.

I definitely agree with her on that point. It would be best to develop your own network first & perhaps later add more protocols. Gnutella & other open-source protocols seem like the only safe bet here.

Originally posted by Ethen
In app design the best UI is no UI. Local content and p2p content would seem merged, when looking in my connected (insert your app's name here) media folder.

This is an excellent point of course! The reason I liked AG so much (and why I believe it was so successful) was the simplicity. All you needed was a browser and the satellite. You didn't need to make use of the community features, but if you did all you needed was a browser and the satellite. (I think you see where I'm going with this ) You didn't need skins etc. but if you wanted it, there were more than 5 independant ui's & about 200 skins. It didn't hurt that the app had such a small memory footprint either & was cross-platform (there were even RISC OS versions!)

Another thing that many p2p's neglect is removable media. AG got this right : zip drives, CD-r & unmapped network drives were all shareable. napho might know of other examples, but my experience with FT & DC is that sharing (although strictly enforced in DC) is difficult if you don't administer the network yourself or aren't aware of how to get around these limitations. I'm sure that much more content would be shared if people were allowed to do so in their circumstances (eg. someone who doesn't know how to or doesn't have permission to alter network settings, yet does have access to many shared folders.) This goes hand-in-hand with Ethen's statements.

Originally posted by napho
Also they build anticipation of a new version. Blubster is an example of this; last week they had 6000 online, now it's double. When their new version comes out next week they could be at quadruple where they were last week.

This is a double-edged sword. Too much anticipation without the features can be a bad thing, although I'm sure this won't be a problem. I'm sure forums etc. which already discuss the AYB phenomenon would be a good place to start.

This is a little off-topic as far as networks go, but I'd like to see a p2p with an easy & expert mode toggle. Although, to use expert mode you must pass a little test first. I discussed this in this thread by Teclis.