We’ve had a lot of success in the last few years putting great content in front of our audiences. Our Featured Content experiments with musicians, filmmakers, game developers and authors have resulted in tens of millions of downloads, not to mention record deals, sold-out movie theaters, world tours and all kinds of ancillary revenue generated for the creators we’ve partnered with. But that’s no longer enough. We believe we can make digital distribution even more viable for creators and fans. So, beginning now, we’ll be testing new ways to drive profitability for creators and publishers, while delivering even more meaningful media experiences for users.
Today we’re partnering with Fame House to launch a BitTorrent Bundle from hip-hop legend DJ Shadow. But it’s more than that – it’s also a new idea that could revolutionize the content business. Not only does the BitTorrent Bundle contain exclusive video, artwork and tracks from DJ Shadow’s new project Hidden Transmissions From The MPC Era (1992-1996); a celebration of the vintage years which made Shadow world-famous. It’s also a glimpse into the future of creativity. This is the first BitTorrent Bundle to feature a software package offer from one of our media partners, in what promises to be a groundbreaking experiment. Download it here.
It’s a simple idea, but the ramifications for consumers and creators are huge. Every time a user downloads the free software offer packaged with the DJ Shadow Bundle, our media partners will pay BitTorrent for delivering them a new user. We’re sharing this revenue directly with DJ Shadow, in the hope of creating a new sustainable digital revenue stream for content producers, allowing them to monetize the BitTorrent ecosystem in ways that make sense for them and their fans.
We’ve been doing promotions and advertising around content since 2008. But it’s time to make that experience better. The DJ Shadow Bundle is the first of a number of new advertising experiments we’ll be testing in-client, on our websites and other media properties in the next few months. This move will allow us to keep delivering the best torrent products in the world. By making media offers more sophisticated and valuable to our users, we hope to empower artists and creators to build sustainable new business models within the BitTorrent ecosystem that make sense for all of us.
We will always have offer-free products in market such as BitTorrent Plus, and our core business is still creating the best torrent clients in the world. But we’ve seen how relevant and meaningful good content offers are to our users, and how supportive the BitTorrent community is of the content creators we work with. New business models built on top of the BitTorrent ecosystem are the future of content. This is where fans are. It’s time to bring artists, filmmakers and game developers into that conversation in meaningful ways too.
Eric Klinker – CEO, BitTorrent
