“In putting together this directory of companies in the
peer-to-peer space, the editors at the O’Reilly Network spent some
time debating whether many of them were truly peer-to-peer. Having
ridden the Internet buzzword train for many years, we’ve watched as
companies spin to re-label themselves: Netcos became Push
companies, became B2B companies, became Open Source companies, and
now, many are redefining themselves as peer-to-peer companies.”
“Tim O’Reilly, who got dragged into this discussion when he
walked past my desk, says he sees at least three types of projects
working in this peer-to-peer space:
- Instant messaging apps, and in these he includes not only true
IM projects like Jabber, but some file sharing services:
“Napster is really just instant messaging where the question
isn’t ‘Are you there?’ but ‘Do you have this file?'” - Workgroups, where individuals can collaborate over the Net on a
joint project, and - Distributed computing.”