BitTorrents Inc’s New Moves

There is BitTorrent as in the protocol used for p2p file sharing and BitTorrent Inc, the company founded by the writer of the BitTorrent protocol (Bram Cohen).  There is also BitTorrent the software – a client that uses the BitTorrent protocol.  This client was an open source application and has been hugely influential.

In this post I’m going to take a look at BitTorrent Inc.  So what is the company up to these days?  Well, a few years ago the company stopped using Bram’s original client and moved to the closed source μTorrent (though it is an impressive bit of software).  The company is also seeking ways to make p2p into a commercial operation.

Recently it opened up the SDK forμTorrent – a not dissimilar move to what Twitter and Facebook have done, where you allow other developers to write their own apps that integrate into the mother-client.  It’s a good way for a company to expand the range of functionality they offer without doing the development themselves.  On the other hand they have little control over what will happen.  Done right and you can generate an ecosystem of interesting and varied apps that make your platform more attractive to users. It’s a way of using the ideas of the swarm of user/developers out there.

It also posted a few job openings that give an insight into what it’s next moves might be;