The author

HTTP Must Die!

Steven Pemberton, CWI Amsterdam

HTTP

BUT

How could we do better?

Use existing technologies.

Peer-to-peer:

Magnet Links

Saying not where to get it, but what you want

Fall-back to single source for long-tail content.

magnet:?xt=urn:sha1:YNCKHTQCWBTRNJIV4WNAE52SJUQCZO5C
?as=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Fulysses.html

Bit Torrent

If someone already has the document you are downloading in their cache, they can serve it to you.

If several people have it, they can share the task by sharing different parts.

You get it even faster.

Example: Tribler

Tribler streaming a film

Tribler

Note (in blue progress bar) how the file is loading in bits, but priority has been given to the start of the file so you can immediately start streaming.

Wonderful Life being streamed

Long-tail content

Personalised pages are a possible example of long-tail content.

But even these are applicable, since personalised pages can be represented in very many cases as a merge of the main content and the personalisation data (which for instance XForms is particularly good at).

In Summary

Although you still need HTTP for long-tail, and single-use content, replacing HTTP with peer-to-peer+magnet links makes the most of the web: