Graphical BitTorrent simulator

If you think BitTorrent is about pirating music, you're missing out on a really cool emerging distribution system¹. Carl Franklin uses BitTorrent to distribute DotNetRocks. We've used it on the Monoppix project² to distribute over 1.7TB in 12 days on a $5/month hosting package (there are 620 downloads of a 445MB file in progress right now). It's an economical and efficient way to distribute large files.

Peter Provost points to a java applet BitTorrent simulator which shows why this is so cool. Fire it up, hit the "+" key 10 times (ten people want the file), then hit the "s" key twice (two seeds to supply the file). Watch the fun - at first, the seeds send bits of the file out to some of the downloaders, but then the downloaders start distributing the bits they've got with eachother, and the bits start flyin:

[viaGeek Notes 2005-03-11]

¹In fact, trading copywritten music or video over BitTorrent is a pretty dumb idea, since it's not at all anonymous. Users are visible and trackable.
²We're using BlogTorrent for Monoppix. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of some of the other trackers out there, but it's a simple PHP/MySql system that installed in 2 minutes and works well.