The Inquisitr » limewire

Sharing on Facebook is a good thing unless it’s using Limewire

Steven Hodson — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:55:00 +0000

With a market share of around 35% Limewire is one of the best known filesharing applications and this was something they were hoping would become a success application on Facebook. The only problem is that Facebook doesn’t want anything to do with any application that even has a whiff of dirty filesharing connected to it.

Previously Facebook had blocked The Pirate Bay now it seems that Limewire is the next company to feel the puritanical slap of Facebook as they were informed their application’s sharing feature would be blocked by Facebook. So even though filesharing applications can be, and are being, used for sharing legal files Facebook is not taking any chances.

Speaking with TorrentFreak the Vice President of Product Management for Limewire, Jason Herskowit had this to say about the ban

Jason Herskowit, Vice President Product Management at LimeWire told TorrentFreak that Facebook has requested a number of changes to LimeWire’s Facebook integration after they introduced the new feature. LimeWire quickly complied with these requests, but that was not good enough.

“Unfortunately, this week we were contacted again. This time not with a change request, but with a notice that they were going to disable the feature,” Jason explained. “Rather than leave the users with a broken LimeWire, we decided to disable the feature before they did so. As an avid user of both Facebook and LimeWire myself, I am as disappointed by this as anyone.”

“It is unfortunate for us all, particularly considering that LimeWire and Facebook share the common vision of being ‘a place to connect and share’. We hope to find a way to work with Facebook to re-enable the features that you guys continue to ask for and we sincerely apologize for having to remove this feature in the near-term,” Jason added.

Myself, I’m not surprised in the least with Facebook’s action. The last thing they want to do is fall in the crosshairs of entertainment industry and their lapdogs.

LimeWire to release LimeWire 5.0 with social sharing network features

Dominic Rivera — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 04:22:29 +0000

LimeWire 5.0 will soon be available before the end of this year, Kevin Bradshaw, LimeWire’s CEO revealed. With the new version, users can choose to set up personal networks based on existing contacts and exchange information selectively with their friends.

“When Lime Wire was launched in 2000, we were pioneers in the peer-to-peer file sharing world, and we have seen that world change as our users have grown with us,” Bradshaw said. “The peer-to-peer world has always had an inherently social aspect to it, and with our next version, we are bringing social sharing to the forefront. We see Lime Wire 5.0 not only enhancing our current users’ capabilities, but the new program has the potential to create a new generation of Lime Wire users who are interested in connecting, sharing, socializing and discovering.”

LimeWire 5.0 will allow users to:

Set up secure personal sharing networks based on existing contacts; users can choose to limit distribution to personal network only

Integrate buddy lists from Jabber-compatible services

Provide better virus protection

Interface with The LimeWire Store

Easier navigation with a new visual design of both website and application allowing users more security and better ability to manage shared files, download, search and connect with friends

LimeWire is the largest free P2P file-sharing software with over 70 million unique monthly users (and this includes me). It has been downloaded 350,000 times everyday and boasts approximately 5 million active users at any moment.

Brand Asset Digital brings contextual advertising to P2P networks

Duncan Riley — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:49:40 +0000

Advertising on file sharing sites has always been a difficult market. Most mainstream advertisers don’t want their brands tied into illegal content, and nearly all the big ad providers prohibit their ads from being shown on such sites. The vacuum has been filled by fringe players, with advertising for porn and gambling taking the places that would usually be reserved for Adsense units or mainstream display advertising.

Brand Asset Digital aims to go where most fear to tread, with a contextual advertising network that targets search results on file sharing sites.

Brand Asset Digital’s P2Pwords allows advertisers to target promotional messages to users based on what they’re looking for on services such as Limewire and eMule. A user searches for a term like they would on a traditional search engine such as Google, and they are offered a list of results. Mixed into those results are contextually delivered adverting messages.

The LA Times interviewed the founder Joey Patuleia, who said of the market: “This is the most unleveraged, unbranded, unmarketed space in the history of the Internet.”

In a quest to reach users where ever they are, advertisers may be finally softening their stance on advertising such as this. Advertisers who have already used the service include Vitaminwater, General Motors, Dial Corp and a few dozen independent music artists. The unknown is how the movie and music industry will respond; they won’t be happy to see companies such as General Motors advertising on P2P sites, in turn helping to financially support many of these services.