WebTorrent Update - Decentralized Web Meetup 2018

Feross shares an update on the latest in the WebTorrent project , what's next for WebTorrent, and lessons that may help other decentralized web projects to achieve ease-of-use, adoption, and user growth.

Event link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/decentralized-web-meet-up-tickets-46225948055

Transcript

1. Presented by Feross
   

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2. TORRENTS
   LARGEST P2P ECOSYSTEM
   

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3. WEB BROWSER
   LARGEST + BEST APP RUNTIME
   

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4. TORRENT APPS
   > 250 million users
   > 10-20 million nodes online
   WEB BROWSERS
   > 4 billion users
   > 1 billion sites
   

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5. BRINGING P2P TO TODAY'S WEB
   

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6. BROWSER ® SERVER
   

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7. BROWSER ® BROWSER
   

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8. WEB RTC
   REAL TIME COMMUNICATIONS
   

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9. DATA CHANNEL
   

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10. > NAT traversal
    > No cross-origin policy
    > Transport encryption
    > Reliable/unreliable
    > In-order/out-of-order
    

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11. DEMO
    

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12. HUNDREDS OF REAL USERS
    > CineTimes
    > Bitlove
    > PeerTube
    > BTorrent
    > live-torrent
    > More on webtorrent.io/faq
    

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13. GET STARTED WITH <br/><script src="webtorrent.min.js">
    <br/>const client = new WebTorrent()<br/>const torrent = client.add('magnet:...')<br/>torrent.on('ready', torrent => {<br/>const file = torrent.files[0]<br/>file.appendTo(document.body)<br/>})<br/>
    webtorrent.min.js is loaded 2 million times per month
    

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14. WEBTORRENT ON NPM
    > Lightweight (just 75 KB)
    > Pure JavaScript (no native dependencies)
    > Full-featured (magnet uris, dht, tracker, pex)
    > Stream from files (On-demand piece prioritization)
    > Shares dependencies with Dat and JS-IPFS
    

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15. EVEN EASIER WITH A CUSTOM ELEMENT
    
    
    

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16. HOW SIMPLE IS YOUR HELLO WORLD?
    

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17. WHAT'S NEXT?
    > Fix performance issues with 20+ torrents
    > WebRTC DHT (blocked on WebRTC NG)
    > Update APIs for ES next (async, await)
    > Finalize the spec (for third-party implementors)
    > Sustainable community
    > Release version 1.0
    

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18. WEBTORRENT DESKTOP
    

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19. WEBTORRENT DESKTOP
    TALKS TO DESKTOP & BROWSER CLIENTS
    

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22. FEATURES
    > Non-commercial (No ads)
    > Free software (MIT)
    > Cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux)
    > Instant playback (Fastest DHT implementation)
    > Casting (AirPlay, Chromecast, etc.)
    > Best torrent app UX (In my humble opinion)
    

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23. WEBTORRENT DESKTOP USAGE
    > Currently has 70,000 monthly active users
    > Organic, word-of-mouth growth
    

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24. WHAT IS THE USER PROBLEM YOU'RE SOLVING?
    

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25. WHAT'S NEXT?
    > Rehaul UX (could be even simpler than it is now)
    > A few important power user features
    > Outreach to get users faster — to 1 million!
    > Sustainable community
    > Release version 1.0
    

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26. STATE OF COMMUNITY
    > Supported in Brave Browser and Vuze
    > Looking for new maintainers
    > Just added GitHub bots
    > Need help reviewing pull requests
    > Patreon funding is very helpful
    

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27. WEBTORRENT IS HUMBLE IN SCOPE
    > No mutability (static content only)
    > No reinvention of existing standards
    > No crypto-currency
    > No way to serve full websites/apps
    > No venture capital funding
    > No plan to make a profit
    > No scope creep (Keeps API simple)
    

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28. FOCUS
    

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29. LEARN MORE
    AT WEBTORRENT.IO
    

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30. THANKS!
    SAY HI AT @FEROSS OR FEROSS.ORG
    

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