Onion Networks has a CONTENT-addressable web solution which follows the P2P model I discussed a week or two ago:
“Here’s a rough DESCRIPTION of how it works: Say you have a video you want lots of people to see. You configure your server computer with some of Onion’s capabilities. When someone downloads your file, that person’s own computer becomes a site where other people can go to download the same file. The more people who get the video, the more widely it’s distributed — with the Onion software keeping track — and the less load you’ll see on your own computer.
It’s somewhat analogous to the class of products known as caching servers, such as those run by Akamai. Companies pay Akamai to store copies of their most widely requested Web material in various physical locations, so people can get it more easily and locally. Cory Doctorow, a technologist and writer, calls the Onion technology “Ad-hoc-amai” — reflecting the ad hoc way the data spreads out to local computers.”
