Peer to peer traffic on the internet has always gotten a bad rap. It has been associated almost exclusively with file sharing, or as the RIAA prefers to call file sharing - "The Destruction of Everything Good in the World, like Hugs... and America". But as I explained last week, peer to peer actually has a lot to offer the commercial sector, especially in the media industry.

The World Wide Web was built on the transfer of text files and linking them together. Back when everyone had 14.4 Kbit/s modems, viewing image-heavy pages was a pain. Web site visitors didn't have the bandwidth to download the images fast enough, so they were left waiting. As broadband connections came to home users, and the bandwidth hogs went from pictures to audio to video. Now the problem isn't on the user end, it's on the provider and server end.

For users, they can download all the media they want at no additional bandwidth cost. For media providers, like streaming radio stations, the bandwidth costs add up quickly. Unlike over-the-air broadcasting, internet audio and video streams require a full allocation of bandwidth for each additional listener. That is, of course, unless stations get their listeners to carry their bandwidth needs for them.