BitTorrent today announced it plans to release BitTorrent Bundle for publishers as a closed alpha on September 24. The goal will be to make direct-to-fan distribution simple by automating the process of creating a media torrent.
BitTorrent says it wants to help artists around the world find and connect with new audiences. In May, the company launched BitTorrent Bundle, a new media format that lets artists, labels, and studios distribute their content as easily as possible.
For the past five months, BitTorrent has been helping a small group of artists build their own BitTorrent Bundle campaigns. Now it wants to start giving them the tool to do it themselves.
Direct-to-fan publishing made simple: All you need to do to build a Bundle is upload your assets. There are no size caps, or file type restrictions. Once all your stuff is up there, we'll create a gated Bundle and a custom landing page that you can share with the world.
Publish what you want: Creativity takes many forms. That's why we built BitTorrent Bundle. It's a format designed to hold anything and everything you make: from video, to art, to music, in one simple download.
Grow fan interaction and value: There are 170 million fans in BitTorrent waiting to hear from you. How you engage them is up to you. Give fans a free download. Then, let them unlock content exclusives in exchange for an email.
The company also revealed today that BitTorrent Bundle collaborations have been downloaded by 18 million fans so far. It further claims it has funneled over 1 million users to artist properties and helped collect over 600 thousand email leads.
Those are impressive numbers so far and certainly show that Bundle has potential. We'll keep you posted as the format and its tools go from alpha to stable release, and beyond.