Posted by Technobarbarian on 07/28/06 21:56

"FatKat" <robynari@juno.com> wrote in message
news:1154118327.287890.144560@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...>

>Somehow, I don't see how a free program bundled with spyware has
> generated all that much revenue, and I doubt user's habits have been
> all that loyal in four years. I was a Kazaa user back then, but junked
> it for WinMX, Shareazza, DC++ and now eMule. I sometimes shift between
> WinMX, eMule and (infrequently now) Shareazza, but have never gone back
> to Kazaa. Kazaa was often the app I heard people talk about when
> warning about spyware-laden peer-share apps. As for ad revenue, there
> are bigger companies out there sruggling to get internet ad-money, I
> don't see how Sharman has managed to amass $100 mill, let alone what
> they'd need to stay in business now that they're in the hole for that
> much.

In the p2p world loyalty doesn't count for much. It's the number of
simultaneous users that generates ad revenue. Kazaa's simultaneous users are
counted in the millions. Here's another old article:
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=298

November 15, 2003

"Advertising and bundled software many not sound like a recipe for making
big money but in the P2P industry it can be enough for even the smaller P2P
companies to rake in millions of dollars. Industry observers say that
Sharman Networks' annual revenue is estimated to be $175 million and court
documents show that much smaller players like StreamCast have earnt many
millions from P2P. There is certainly some serious money to be made out of
P2P."

You do the math. It looks like they're still a few dollars ahead of the
game to me.

TB

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