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MiniNova hits 4 Billion Downloads
February 17, 2008
There are two juggernauts of the BitTorrent community, The Pirate Bay and MiniNova. While The Pirate Bay takes most of the headlines for the world's largest tracker, MiniNova has flown quietly under the radar and has become the world’s largest indexer. With a clean interface and a search engine that actually returns something relevant, MiniNova has accumulated a following that as of today downloaded their 4 billionth torrent file.From MiniNova’s auspicious beginnings, Niek van der Maas, Business Developer and founder of MiniNova, conceptualized his creation as a mere side project. However, during the early months of 2005, the file-sharing world was quickly transitioning from eDonkey2000 to BitTorrent. MiniNova caught the wave at the right moment, and before long, the Dutch based BitTorrent tracker was soon carving out an impressive niche.
“When we launched back in January 2005, we were the first BitTorrent site to offer a sophisticated search engine, sorting of search results, categorization, etc.,” Niek told Slyck.com. “We try to keep our lead by innovating and extending our website with new features. Many things changed in the past years, but one thing will always be the same: we try to offer the #1 P2P directory and search engine.”
The MiniNova concept caught on. By May of 2006, MiniNova's fledgling userbase downloaded400 million torrent files. Eight months later in January of 2007, Niek’s creation would hit 1 billion downloads – an achievement reached just days shy of their 2 year anniversary
The time between each billion accelerated in 2007, and by May, MiniNova accounted for its 2 billionth download. MiniNova’s growth was now stratospheric, and 3 billion wasn’t too far ahead.
“This is very good news, it means our site is growing exponential: the amount of total torrent downloads roughly doubles every half year,” Niek remarked on MiniNova’s 2 billionth torrent served. “And more downloads means more exposure, so more content available on our website.”
Only 4.5 months later in November of 2007, MiniNova reached the 3 billion torrent milestone. By now, MiniNova had confirmed its presence at one of the leading BitTorrent trackers. To accommodate its increasing popularity, server power was added. Server power is great for downloaders, however, what about giving back to the artists? Taking advantage of MiniNova’s position as one of the top ranked websites, Niek launched MiniNova CD (Content Distribution), an avenue for any aspiring artist to seed their work. The goal of the initiative was to allow any computer user, even with marginal skill, to expose their work to the world with just one mouse click.
“The reason we developed this service is that we’re used getting quite some emails from (mainly indie) content producers,” blogged Niek during the service’s launch. “Many of those are interested in publishing their content on Mininova, but that’s not an easy job. Most content producers have no technical knowledge of P2P and BitTorrent at all. We’re changing this with the introduction of CD.”
Today, MiniNova’s users have downloaded their 4 billionth torrent file. That places MiniNova in position which exceeds iTunes, and with political capital to spend, MiniNova hopes to lure level minded distribution rather than reactionary copyright protection.
“First of all, we're very happy that we reached this point. When we started Mininova as a hobby/personal site, we never thought it would grow this big,” Niek told Slyck.com on the accomplishment.
“Having said that, a site that captures a traffic profile and audience like Mininova, is in a better position to negotiate deals than startups. In the coming months, we'd like to extend our Content Distribution service (http://www.mininova.org/distribution) and allow more premium publishers to share their content. Of course, this content will always be free to download.”
With a non-polarized and approachable philosophy, MiniNova has avoided many of the pitfalls bestowed on so many other BitTorrent websites. Looking ahead, Niek isn’t looking for a confrontation or to further escalate the destructive conflict that has plagued online distribution. Optimistic, Niek is hopeful that BitTorrent will be used as an acceptable means to deliver artist’s work.
“It's clear that BitTorrent is here to stay. The protocol will probably evolve and be extended in several ways. P2P-streaming of audio and video content will be increasingly popular, making file-sharing easier than ever. Hopefully ad-supported downloads will be supported by all major content studios in a few years. We will do our utmost to be on top of these developments. “
Becoming one of the top-ranked sites on the Internet is no small task, especially when many similar sites are facing litigation against the entertainment industry. The challenges include keeping the entertainment industry’s legal team at bay, complying with DMCA requests, providing an insatiable supply of server power/bandwidth to millions of users, frequently upgrading software/hardware, and constantly innovating.
“It has changed my life, and those of my 'colleagues', in many ways,” Niek reflected. “The past 3 years were very exciting, and there is no way I would've missed this experience. Having said that, this all would not have been possible without the support of our users and moderating team! We are very grateful to everyone who helped us accomplish this major milestone. Thank you for the interview.”
MiniNova has finally reached 4 billion downloads. With an exponential rate of growth, 8 billion downloads could arrive by the end of this year.
Today, MiniNova’s users have downloaded their 4 billionth torrent file. That places MiniNova in position which exceeds iTunes, and with political capital to spend, MiniNova hopes to lure level minded distribution rather than reactionary copyright protection.
“First of all, we're very happy that we reached this point. When we started Mininova as a hobby/personal site, we never thought it would grow this big,” Niek told Slyck.com on the accomplishment.
“Having said that, a site that captures a traffic profile and audience like Mininova, is in a better position to negotiate deals than startups. In the coming months, we'd like to extend our Content Distribution service (http://www.mininova.org/distribution) and allow more premium publishers to share their content. Of course, this content will always be free to download.”
With a non-polarized and approachable philosophy, MiniNova has avoided many of the pitfalls bestowed on so many other BitTorrent websites. Looking ahead, Niek isn’t looking for a confrontation or to further escalate the destructive conflict that has plagued online distribution. Optimistic, Niek is hopeful that BitTorrent will be used as an acceptable means to deliver artist’s work.
“It's clear that BitTorrent is here to stay. The protocol will probably evolve and be extended in several ways. P2P-streaming of audio and video content will be increasingly popular, making file-sharing easier than ever. Hopefully ad-supported downloads will be supported by all major content studios in a few years. We will do our utmost to be on top of these developments. “
Becoming one of the top-ranked sites on the Internet is no small task, especially when many similar sites are facing litigation against the entertainment industry. The challenges include keeping the entertainment industry’s legal team at bay, complying with DMCA requests, providing an insatiable supply of server power/bandwidth to millions of users, frequently upgrading software/hardware, and constantly innovating.
“It has changed my life, and those of my 'colleagues', in many ways,” Niek reflected. “The past 3 years were very exciting, and there is no way I would've missed this experience. Having said that, this all would not have been possible without the support of our users and moderating team! We are very grateful to everyone who helped us accomplish this major milestone. Thank you for the interview.”
MiniNova has finally reached 4 billion downloads. With an exponential rate of growth, 8 billion downloads could arrive by the end of this year.
This story is filed in these Slyck News categories
BitTorrent :: Trackers/Indexers
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