UberNoggin

This will take about three blog posts to really explain in full detail but like all great ideas I’ve just got to get it out! Some of you may have heard of these concepts before but I find them so applicable that I think it’s important to give them some space to grow.

Come with me on a ride in the “Way Back Machine” to the Golden Age of television when Sarnoff theorized that the value of a network was linear and equal to the number of viewers.

Sarnoff’s rule is useful only for monologic, one-way communication in the most linear models.

Metcalf’s law, a law developed to describe the possibilities created by ethernet networks . Metcalf adds to Sarnoff’s law by including communication that isn’t just one-to-many but is one-to-one in a network of many. We can see these kinds of connections in email networks and telephone networks where the ability access anyone in the network adds value to access even if you don’t actually reach out to every person in the network. Metcalf’s law helps us understand how social networks grow when they reach a critical point of adoption. We’re not likely to join a small network; without enough people involved we have little incentive to join but once we see that a site has achieved critical mass the value of the service may increase in our view. (Note: there are, of course, early adopters who are happy to join small social networks to “kick the tires.”)

Finally, we should look at Reed’s law which adds multiple size groups to the network to build on the one-to-one communication possibilities with three, four, five person groups etc.

Why are these laws important? They become important when we look at larger networks.

Notice here that when the community size grows to just 100 the number of possible connections between users of the network grows exponentially!

So what are the implications?

The implications are huge when we think about the communication mechanics enabled in social networks. The ability to create affinity groups within a social network creates powerful possibilities for network loyalty and adoption. For example, let’s take a look at Facebook.

When Facebook started it was limited to pre-established local networks. When I joined the only profiles I could access were those who were also students on my campus. I could not reach beyond that group and I couldn’t form new subgroups inside that network to better express my interests and form closer bonds with those already in my larger network. At this point Facebook and MySpace were neck and neck with usage and account numbers and many social network critics couldn’t quite establish why Facebook would be desirable when it was so limited. Then Facebook changed. The first change was to allow non-students to join the site, thus raising its value by sheer numbers (Sarnoff’s law). The network was simply able to reach more people. Second, Facebook began to allow individuals to request their own networks that crossed the borders of existing networks (I belong to the Bloomington city network which has both students and non-students as members) as well as the freedom to start groups any time I’d like (Reed’s Law). Also instituted were additional methods of communicating one-on one (Metcalf’s law) followed closely by the “feed” which allowed much of this communication to be shared with my larger network. The result? Over the last year Facebook has experienced a massive growth from 7 million users to over 17 million in one year.

It’s tough to argue against that kind of growth!

So, you might be saying, that’s all good and fine for Facebook but how can I use these laws to suggest how I can make my social network, blog, software, virtual world really take off? Well, I know the answer but you’ll just have to wait until the next blog entry. Enjoy the suspense…and the links!

• Reed “Weapons of Math Destruction”
• Metcalfe’s Law Recurses Down the Long Tail of Social Networks
• The Four C’s: Steps to Reed’s Law
• Metcalf’s Law is Wrong
• That Sneaky Exponential—Beyond Metcalfe’s Law to the Power of Community Building

Post a Comment