Yesterday Fred Stutzman posted about a social networking theory that he is developing. I am just going to address the central theory and then outline a couple of ideas that came to mind while reading.
Therefore, the fundamental flaw in applying Metcalfe to social technology is its inherent lack of nuance and granularity. When people join the network, they are given more options than simply connecting; the network is worth the sum of associations and actions that are allowed in the network. We must instead think of network value in terms of a network effect multiplier, as the actual value a network adds to an application is under the direct control of the application designers.
The above paragraph introduces Fred’s theory. Essentially, Metcalfe’s law applied wonderfully for binary networks, but fails to take into account the multifaceted nature of modern social networks. One of the examples Fred uses is MySpace. He points out that value is not limited to how many connections a user has but is also enhanced by the various types of interactions and actions enabled by the system.
Lately I have spent time in MySpace connecting with old friends. In so doing, I have come to appreciate the customization of MySpace over sites such as Friendster and Facebook. While this customization leads to much bad design, it also enables users to add third party flash widgets to their profiles. By adding third party services, a user can in effect build in value beyond what the sites designers intended. For example, the new service txtdrop.com allows users to build text messaging capability into their MySpace profiles. In fact, this ability to mashup applications and services is one of the key features of Web 2.0. If mashups continue to be the norm and social networking sites such as MySpace begin to offer open API’s , then any new participant could bring in or develop third party value beyond the control of the designers.
Fred’s piece also made me think of other types of networks such as Wikipedia. A user’s contribution to this service can be measured in intellectual contributions as well as through interactions and actions. I really don’t have any conclusions as to how Fred’s theory applies to these networks, but am interested to see how he applies or expands his theory accordingly.
I was also thinking about how different users of web networks often have different capabilities from one another according to their administrative privileges or user type. Might it be possible to apply Fred’s theory to how many or how few privileges users should receive?
Lastly, I though of the “paradox of choice“. At what point do added features or interactivity begin to detract from the value of a network by overwhelming the users? What is the proper balance between the number of users and the complexity of the service they are participating in? I wonder if these extremes are inversely proportional so that a massive network like MySpace could be clogged if it had both too many features and too many users, but a small network of experts might benefit from a highly complex feature set. Fred’s theory might be a good starting place to explore these questions.
I am now going to read over Fred’s theory a few more times to make sure my comments are on track. If not, these are still ideas inspired by his paper.
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