A court order to block copyrighted files might be chasing some Americans away from Napster, but the enormous popularity worldwide stays.
 Use of the file-swapping service fell from 15.2 million users in February to 12.1 million in March, while the number of visitors to the Napster Web site increased from 5.9 million to 8.2 million, respectively. |
Stephen Kim, a Jupiter Media Metrix (a company which studies Internet usage figures) vice president, said the drop in March was interesting, but not surprising because that was the month Napster began filtering.
Kim said people might have been driven to the Web site by a desire for more information. "In other months where there have been major court decisions affecting Napster, we have seen increases in visits to the Web site," he said.
But the intresting part of this study is:
 Bearshare.com ranked among last month's "top newcomers," defined as sites that appeared in the company's ratings for the first time and had at least 500,000 unique visitors. According to Jupiter Media Metrix, Bearshare.com offers a free file-sharing program similar to Gnutella. The site drew 520,000 visitors in March, which prompted Jupiter Media Metrix to speculate that a "new alternative" to Napster might be emerging. |
"It appears that Bearshare might be the first of other sites that may start popping up if Napster were to be shut down," said Kim. "We will be watching closely to see if any alternatives come in after changes to the Napster service."
Will bearshare be the new napster? Check our poll here, and vote for your favorite file sharing program! (left on the mainpage!)
Source: Newsbytes
