It always amuses me when I see the hype BEFORE the actual product. This is a great example at Allpeers.
Whilst not wanting to take anything away from the product (see below), it is a trend that has caught us out, on and off over the years. Vapour-ware is still alive and well.
Viral marketing is also part of this process, and I note that several, potentially influential, sites have now been attracted to comment on it. This includes TechCrunch and Lorelle on wordpress (yep – you influential girrrlll!)
I gather it has already been slashdotted (twice!) and repeatedly Dugg as well. Not bad for a concept that – as far as I know – hasn’t even reached beta testing 🙂
Of course, I probably wouldn’t have heard of it – or be blogging about it – without the “viral information network”.
As for the product itself? BRING IT ON! Sounds great – one of the reasons that the “information virus” is spreading I guess. In short – a firefox extension that is a full featured (?) Bittorent client.
So – all the hype pre-release – good or bad? I’m undecided. You?
Influential? I wouldn’t go that far, but the hype got me interested in this. What I couldn’t understand is how this would be something better than what already exists, so I was thrilled to find some posts that actually sound like people have used AllPeers and have figured out a use for the thing.
Until I give it a whack, I’ll just stand back and watch with the rest of the curious. As for hype, bloggers live for hype. And it is amazing that sometimes the hype is bigger than the product, and when the product finally comes out, all enthusiasm is gone. Even word of mouth from actual users is ho hum, heard that before, why bother. Very fine line to walk when it comes to PR and marketing. Excellent point you’ve made. Thanks!