This number represents a combined total of all BitTorrent Mainline and µTorrent software clients, from people like you all around the world. On behalf of the BT team, thank you for being a part of our astounding growth!

Additional Statistics:

• Average daily active users: Over 20 million
• Average daily client downloads: Over 400,000
• 52 languages (including English)
• Clients checking in from over 220 countries every day

A complete press release is here.

This milestone is especially notable as we get ready to head to Las Vegas later this week for CES. In a private suite at the show, we will be previewing the new BitTorrent technology ecosystem, an orchestra of software, devices and content designed to simplify the digital lifestyle and connect content creators with our massive audience. If you are interested in dropping by, please email rsvp@bittorrent.com.

Stay tuned for more details, and thank you again. Happy New Year!

Bridging the digital divide continues to be a priority, therefore we have expanded our team and are today announcing the addition of Shahi Ghanem as chief strategist and executive vice president of marketing. Shahi will take our efforts in the expansion of apps, content and consumer electronics to a new level, and we are thrilled to have him join the team.

Shahi has worked with dozens of startups and has an impressive background in digital media, Internet advertising, consumer electronics and advanced technology development. Formerly President of DivX, Inc., a developer of video compression, digital rights management and media language technologies, he helped lead the company from a pre-revenue startup into a profitable, multi-national, public company. While with DivX, he was instrumental in forging relationships with several major Hollywood studios and every major chip and consumer electronics manufacturer in the world.

Recently, Shahi served as CEO of digital media start-ups including STL (helps Fortune 500 companies manage, distribute and measure digital assets), EmpowHER (a health media company dedicated to female health and wellness), and Brickfish (an Internet advertising and social media company that delivers campaigns and metrics to clients in the fashion, sports, electronics and consumer products industries).

Please join the BitTorrent team in welcoming Shahi to the company.

- Eric -

First, if you check your new apps feature (recently released in the new BitTorrent Mainline client and the µTorrent beta), you’ll find two cool new apps.

The first brings the world-famous TEDTalks directly to you, offering instant, one-click downloads of the latest inspiring and dynamic and educational presentations by well-known personalities in the fields of technology, entertainment, design, business and global development. The concept behind TED is “ideas worth spreading” and through the power of BitTorrent, we’re doing our part to get the word out.

Second, we’re very excited to announce the winner of the µTorrent Developer Challenge. Zulu Music – developed by Steven Viola – gives you an opportunity to discover and download new artists for free via the Jamendo API. Congratulations Steven! His app appears today along with the TED app.

Last but certainly not least, we’re celebrating the unveiling of a new pilot program designed to help connect artists directly with our millions of users. The Featured Artist program offers musicians and filmmakers the ability to submit their work for consideration for special promotions. After our successful work with the filmmakers behind Yes Men, Pioneer One and the popular musician PAZ, we’d like to give other artists a chance to explore this new and unique distribution model.  Artists can upload their creations at www.bittorrent.com/artists for a chance to be spotlighted. Please help spread the word!

-Eric-

True, these two iconic Internet brands deserve a seat at the table in determining the health and regulations of our global network’s backbone. Yet ultimately any compromises must be struck by the industry at large – with the best interest of the consumer first and foremost, as defined by the consumer (not shareholders).

Most of the key points of this proposal have been thoroughly hashed out and the media has done an excellent job at analyzing the good, the bad and the ugly. Today, there’s one factor I’d like to highlight: the fines.

No matter how the agreements, laws or regulations surrounding Net Neutrality are resolved, they must be enforceable. Bad behavior by either the ISPs or Web services cannot result in a slap on the wrist, lest the entire Internet infrastructure becomes a pay-to-play system. If the fine for throttling Skype or BitTorrent traffic is a mere $2 million but saves $10 million (and you may not even get caught), then where’s the incentive to play by the rules? Does the FCC have resources and technologies to monitor and enforce in real-time?

At BitTorrent, we are tireless advocates for Net Neutrality. The Internet belongs to everyone, wired and wireless, and therefore the only solution is for an open and transparent network that doesn’t bias toward specific types of traffic. (While we do agree that ISPs must be able to make money off their network investments, let us not forget that many of those networks relied upon taxpayer contributions, public lands and, in the case of wireless, public spectrum leased to the ISP.)

Of course network operators need the tools to “manage” their networks, but there needs to be a neutral framework within which this management takes place, there must be transparency over what is happening, and there must be real penalties to prevent practices under the guide of network management from turning into simple “choosing of the winners.”

And what is the price of complacency or appeasement here? The next wave of Internet companies must have the freedom to innovate or technology will quickly stagnate. We don’t believe either backroom deals between major corporations, or government intervention will offer a full and lasting solution. Continuous, fast-paced, open and transparent innovation is the only answer.

Yes, with media and cloud services exploding in demand, networks are being taxed. This is why we developed µTP (Micro Transport Protocol) – an intelligent delivery protocol capable of sensing traffic congestion ahead and can reroute data on a smoother path. It’s one example of the types of innovations we all need to cooperate around to ensure a healthy Internet with opportunities for all.

While Google and Verizon took things into their own hands this week, it’s important to note that Net Neutrality is certainly not yet decided. There is much more to this drama still to run and the stakes are high for everyone – stay tuned.

- Eric -

This effort is similar to efforts in the UK sponsored by their regulator, Ofcom, to determine speeds being delivered to residential broadband customers. The project in the UK, recently published some results that were an interesting snapshot of real network capabilities relative to some of the marketing claims of ISPs. The FCC is taking a similar approach here in the US with additional input from academia, industry and ISPs to produce an enhanced set of measurement data. We at BitTorrent are pleased to be a part of this effort, as we’ve long supported additional transparency measures as an important aspect of any regulatory framework.

We look forward to what should be an interesting set of data as the project unfolds. Stay tuned.

- Eric -

Obviously, a huge focus for us is making sure that we deliver an optimal user experience, which packs in useful functionality while improving on usability and staying true to our lightweight yet feature rich values. In the past several months we have started to introduce significant new functionality to the client. David will be charged with pushing forward the design to address the needs of our users today, while also creating a vision of what users will want and need tomorrow.

Most recently, David held the same title at Lithium Technologies, the leading provider of Social CRM solutions to power the customer network. During his time there he was responsible for managing user experience for all of Lithium’s products, ensuring consistency and improvement of their design throughout the suite of products. He has also held similar positions at Ask.com and Microsoft.

We are very excited to have him join the team, and have no doubt that he will be critical in driving the development of an even better user experience.

- Eric -

BitTorrent has always believed that innovation and collaboration with ISPs where all parties participated in some self-regulation was a more ideal approach than heavy-handed policy. Even in the early days of the net neutrality debate we worked hard to find common ground with Comcast, and to address issues associated with rich media content and network capacity management.

For us, the path has lead to the development of uTP, which is a protocol designed to be sensitive to bottlenecks and yield capacity to other applications when it senses network congestion. It is through innovation like this that we can hope to improve our users’ experience, as well as yield benefits to ISPs by putting less strain on the network.

Challenges are best met with cooperation, and the formation of this group signals that everyone is ready to put down their swords and work together and look for solutions that are in the best of interest of all parties involved.

- Eric -

There are sound engineering and technical reasons why the standards bodies move at their particular pace. Even with this well-established process we can point to only a few fundamental changes of note, despite over 5000 requests for comments (RFCs) now published. Most of the notable changes in the history of the Internet typically came hand in hand with some existential threat forcing change and the pain that comes with it. Examples like CIDR and BGP4 come to mind and even TCP itself was an emergency fix to the congestion collapse of the late 80s. Often, even in the presence of such a threat change may yet take many years to see broad deployment. IPv4 address space depletion is not a recent concern, and yet IPv6 struggles to enjoy broad deployment.

Why is that?  Well, simply put, change can be perilous. Seemingly innocuous changes can experience devastating unforeseen consequences once deployed in the wild. Many well publicized examples abound, like the ECN bit in the IP header that Microsoft once enabled by default, bricked many consumer home gateway devices. This is something from which ECN has never recovered. The Internet has become such a vast collection of technologies, architectures, operating systems, equipment and software that it is difficult to predict, let alone test for every eventuality any widely deployed solution will experience on the network.

So, we should not expect changes like µTP to come easy. At the end of the day, such change on the Internet is bound to be difficult and without question, will require a great deal of help and cooperation to be successful. Considering that our collective community (developers, users and admins) together can transform whole percentage points of global Internet traffic, there is an opportunity to make a difference few technologies, let alone such small companies can usually hope to imagine. As startups we should be thinking big and more than that, achieving big things.  So, we thank every user, every developer, every client, every admin and every ISP who joins us on this considerable journey.

- Eric -

“One of the Internet’s greatest strengths–its unprecedented power to foster technological, economic, and social innovation–stems in significant part from the absence of any central controlling authority, either public or private. The FCC’s role, therefore should not involve regulating the Internet itself.” – FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, May 6, 2010

This week’s announcement from FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski about applying narrow regulation to the Internet was no doubt a pivotal point in the net neutrality debate.

Since embarking on this journey in 2007, BitTorrent Inc. kind of inadvertently became the poster child for net neutrality – as we landed at the center of the discussion. We recognize that this debate represents many interests and means something different to a lot of people, but our stance has always been about championing a neutral Internet that is protocol agnostic. We believe that an open environment is critical in fostering continued innovation, so that we can realize the unlimited potential of the Internet.

Moreover, the debate is about balancing the interests of consumers with ISPs that have a desire to manage their networks. The FCC’s third-way works to balance those interests, which is critical in the absence of a strong market or policy. With that said, we continue to be optimistic that with transparency we will have a more informed public that will create an environment of self-regulation that encourages all parties to act for the greater good.

-Eric-

As Louis D. Brandeis remarked: “Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman. “

And so it remains…  With today’s decision from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals on network neutrality we are left without a strong regulator or a strong marketplace (at least in fixed line Internet access).  And short of congressional action or the classification of broadband under Title II (ISPs consider this the “nuclear” option), publicity remains the only practical remedy for less than favorable consumer practices.

It is precisely this reason I remain optimistic we will not return to the network management practices of 2007.  Through constructive technical dialogue, ISPs have largely adopted application agnostic management techniques and certain applications, like ours, have modified the underlying technology.  And still the Internet grows and mostly still does not labor under the yoke of North Korean or Chinese-style “network management”. If there is anything that stands between us and the dystopia many predict, it is the empowering effect of the Internet towards increased transparency.  A public so armed can be a significant force for change.

–Eric–