curvedinfinity
October 16th, 2008, 04:38 PM
Hey all,
I'd like to test the waters for interest for a new project, which I have been formulating for quite some time. This project tries to solve this idea:
Why isn't it easier to share my things over the internet?
The key ingredient to the answer of this question is the user experience. I personally know a lot about computers, so I can set up an HTTP server on my desktop and then a dynamic DNS and serve my files to anyone in a matter of minutes. However, most people will never get to the point where they are capable of doing this on their own. People would love this capability if they knew the kind of flexibility it offers, but it simply requires too much technical knowledge and steps to complete.
What do I propose then?
A way to look at a file on someone else's computer with zero configuration, using user interfaces that people are already familiar with.
What implementation do I suggest?
A new bittorrent-based "filesystem" consisting of three parts:
An http BT tracker, with per-user tracking
A special BT seeder that syncs a local directory with the tracker
A BT protocol URI for firefox, so you can download bittorrent files directly through the browser
The usage flow would look like this:
Bob wants to share a file
Bob makes an account on the tracker
Bob downloads the seeder, specifying ~/Web as the share directory
Bob puts an image in the Web directory
Bob sends Tom the link to his image, dtp://tracker.com/Bob/image.png
Tom opens the image in Firefox, which automatically uses bittorrent to retrieve it
Anyway, please tell me if you are interested in this idea. I'd be willing to prototype much of it, but I'd need help slogging the whole way. :)
I'd like to test the waters for interest for a new project, which I have been formulating for quite some time. This project tries to solve this idea:
Why isn't it easier to share my things over the internet?
The key ingredient to the answer of this question is the user experience. I personally know a lot about computers, so I can set up an HTTP server on my desktop and then a dynamic DNS and serve my files to anyone in a matter of minutes. However, most people will never get to the point where they are capable of doing this on their own. People would love this capability if they knew the kind of flexibility it offers, but it simply requires too much technical knowledge and steps to complete.
What do I propose then?
A way to look at a file on someone else's computer with zero configuration, using user interfaces that people are already familiar with.
What implementation do I suggest?
A new bittorrent-based "filesystem" consisting of three parts:
An http BT tracker, with per-user tracking
A special BT seeder that syncs a local directory with the tracker
A BT protocol URI for firefox, so you can download bittorrent files directly through the browser
The usage flow would look like this:
Bob wants to share a file
Bob makes an account on the tracker
Bob downloads the seeder, specifying ~/Web as the share directory
Bob puts an image in the Web directory
Bob sends Tom the link to his image, dtp://tracker.com/Bob/image.png
Tom opens the image in Firefox, which automatically uses bittorrent to retrieve it
Anyway, please tell me if you are interested in this idea. I'd be willing to prototype much of it, but I'd need help slogging the whole way. :)