Social community has long been part of P2P. It was in Napster 1.0 and fully one half of Aimster. Today many P2P clients contain chat, IM, and VoIP. But it's always been a secondary feature.

Community has been overlooked amidst the ongoing lawsuits and copyright infringement controversy. But I believe it represents a huge opportunity. There is a massive and receptive consumer market at the convergence of friends, entertainment, and sharing. Witness the explosion of podcasting and people sharing music over their iPods.

MySpace demonstrated the strong appeal of music in social networks. Friendster appears to have taken the next step by introducing its customers and their media to P2P and blessing Grouper. But it's limited. The deal is merely a branded version of Grouper. It is not integrated with the media already hosted on Friendster. I'm happy to similarly give away free branded versions of TrustyFiles with personal file sharing.

The Friendster announcement is likely driven by the great competition in social networking and need for Friendster to think out of the box to regain market momentum. I hope it is an indicator for the future where we will see more significant and innovative offerings in this area.

Marc Freedman
RazorPop, developer of TrustyFiles, the leading multiple network file sharing software with search and download of ALL top networks.
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