I saw two interesting announcements this week in the bittorrent community.
I think they may hint at great changes afoot in the bittorrent world, as the two of the most popular bittorrent clients, Azureus and µTorrent start focusing on making money.

Zudeo released a beta of Azureus 3.0.

Zudeo want’s to be the “HDTV” version of YouTube. It’s an interesting idea, but I think YouTube’s popularity is BASED on the idea of “click” and “watch” in real time. And bittorrent is NOT real time. It’s the “Click” and “wait a few hours” and then “maybe watch tomorrow”. And that will be especially true if Zudeo’s focus is on higher resolution material.

For those familiar with Azureus 2.5, you may be in a slight surprise when you install the 3.0 beta. By default, it starts up with a VERY different user interface than the one we all know and love (or hate). It’s ALL about the Zudeo site! I found it okay, but not really as clean as it needs to be to compete yet with the big boys.

I panicked for a few minutes after I started it up. I was worried that my trust old Azureus had been totally swallowed up in some GUI driven “Simple” interface. But I found the “Advanced” button. (It’s over on right upper side). Hit that and the interface will return to something familiar (with all the features you had before).

The Zudeo/Azureus relationship is discussed here.

It’s clear that open source Azureus is now being integrated into what looks like the commercial venture Zudeo. With the original Azureus project owners now involved in a money-making venture, I would assume that the focus of future code changes may have more to do with making Zudeo better than Azureus better. Even now, you can ONLY GET Azureus 3.0 beta from the Zudeo site, not from the original azureus sourcesafe site.

Does this mean that when Azureus “flips the switch” and sends the Azureus 3.0 update to current 2.5 users, will I suddenly have to cope with Zudeo interface?

I still think that Azureus has too many issues with it (heavy RAM and CPU issues, setup issues) to make it a good choice for the average consumer. We will see how succesful Zudeo is in turning into something consumer friendly.

The Second big news is that BitTorrent, Inc is acquiring µTorrent.

I think this is a smart move by Bram Cohen. Cohen’s clients have ALWAYS been a little minimalist from a GUI interface perspective. He may write GREAT P2P protocols, but his GUI has always seem a little inferior compared to the others. And BitTorrent, Inc. a easy to use interface for downloads, if they are going to be succesful at attempting to sell and rent movies online.

I personally prefer µTorrent’s speed and ease over Azureus’s bloat. If they could just get µTorrent to integrate cleanly with Google Desktop! (I’ve tried all suggestions, and I can’t get it to work - I switched back to Azureus). If Azureus seems to be able to play friendly with Google Desktop, why not µTorrent?!?

With the two largest bittorrent clients now going commercial, what’s anti-DCMA, TV show swapping, internet rebel to do? Once both of those companies start being beholden to the studios for their bread and butter, how long will it be before they start having to add “features” to the clients to help reduce illegal movie sharing?

We know that Cohen is going to release a new “Movie Studio” friendly version of a bittorrent client that will allow legal downloads. Do you think that same client will also allow you to head over to the Pirate Bay also? Bram may like that idea, but I doubt that his new investors will.

I’m anxious to see how this all plays out. But it does seem like 2007 may end up being the “Year of Bittorent!”.