Dan Rayburn has a note out this morning about the lack of traction that P2P vendors such as Pando Networks and BitTorrent are experiencing with Content Delivery Networks. Dan's the most knowledgeable guy I've read about CDNs, and I agree with him here. P2P certainly has its commercial uses, but as Dan points out:
From what I can tell in the market, P2P is not as big of a story as it was at the end of last year. The topic has cooled off a bit except when its being discussed as it pertains to carriers blocking or filtering of P2P based traffic on their networks. Aside from that, customers are not asking me about P2P and 55.2% of those we surveyed about their content delivery needs said they did not plan to even look at P2P as a delivery solution for 2008.
Cost is usually touted as the primary reason to use P2P for content delivery, and as I've argued before, this won't scale--ISPs will eventually demand their pound of flesh, one way or another. Plus, as Dan says over and over, cost isn't even the most important factor for most content providers. My view is that P2P will eventually take its place as a valuable niche method for video delivery, and several of the larger players will gain traction (and/or be acquired). But it's likely to remain a total delivery solution only for file traders and small content owners.
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