Legit Peer-to-Peer File Swaps
Illustration: Gordon Studer
The Buzz: A little startup is about to make a huge splash, introducing a legal and music-industry-blessed file-swapping service. Peer Impact breaks from the gate with a massive catalog, courtesy of the major labels (Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner; at press time, an EMI agreement was being negotiated), with plans for video, animation, and games in the works. Tunes come with a license and a key, and the system's BitTorrent-like mesh architecture breaks files into packets that can be downloaded from multiple sources and reassembled on your PC. Pricing is the usual 99 cents per song, but users get discounts for sharing bandwidth and acting as content hosts.
Bottom Line: Finally! A P-to-P model that both the suits and the geeks of the world can love. This is going to be big.
Flashy Lightning From Mozilla
The Buzz: The org that brought you the lean-and-mean Firefox browser is working to integrate calendaring into its open-source Thunderbird e-mail app. When it's complete, Mozilla's Lightning project will support the same kind of tightly coupled scheduling that Microsoft Outlook users currently enjoy. A working cross-platform prototype (for Windows, Mac, and Linux) should become available at Mozilla.org sometime in the middle of the year.
Bottom Line: On the record, Mozilla developers are adamant that Lightning doesn't target Microsoft Outlook. I've also heard them insist that the Easter Bunny is real.
Travel Search Takes Off
Illustration: Gordon Studer
The Buzz: Online travel agencies are so 2004. The next big thing: travel search engines. Unlike Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity--which maintain arrangements (and sometimes even exclusive deals) with particular airlines, hotel chains, and the like--these dedicated search engines spider a vast array of Web sites to direct you to hot deals. That means you'll receive listings for JetBlue, for instance, or an independent hotel that would not show up at Orbitz et al. Another key difference from the big three: Such search engines don't handle booking; they simply query and point.
Bottom Line: From veteran Sidestep to Cheapflights, Mobissimo, Kayak, Qixo, Yahoo's FareChase, and others, the field is more crowded than JFK Airport on the day before Thanksgiving. Now all we need is a specialized search site we can use to help locate all of the travel search engines.
Ad Choices