i receive 72$ every month doing nothing, there is just 6 links at my website)))And you’re website is much more better then mine.
Payments via PAYPAL and CHECK!!

http://www.text-link-ads.com/?ref=29747

try them…

After you’ll sign up here write to me… and i’ll tell you how to optimize it for well… and give you several good tips…

1. Chinese Scammers, Worldwide Business

2. Ipod world

3. GIFT CARDS

4. Mobile Phones

5. Laptop NEWS

Consider: 10 people on an early phone network. They swap tips and gossip.

Then a salesman gets a phone and realises sales can be made over the phone rather than at doors. Voila, telemarketing.

The 10 people who were on the network perceive a drop in the network’s utility: if they answer the phone, they might not get a tip, they might have their time taken up by someone selling them something.

To the telemarketer, it’s a great thing. 10 people discomfited, one person pleased. Is the network better for the extra connection?

Similarly for spam and email. And blogs and comment spam. And, IME, for social software tools. You have to accommodate the likelihood of a downside too – in fact, people joining the network will (I’d predict) add value according to a normal curve, centred near zero. Most people don’t add much. Some take away. A few add hugely; a few take away hugely. What’s key to the usefulness of a network is how wide the variance of those on it is – not how big it is.

On that basis, you’d expect that small will almost always be better. Social software, therefore, contains the seeds of its destruction if it expands.

Thought-provoking post as usual – I commented on my blog as well.

I’m not sure I follow the point about the network effect multiplier (NEM) being under “the direct control of the application designers.” That seems like network effect is predetermined, valued during developement, without factoring in adoption by users. You clarify the statement later by saying that our actions on the network compose the NEM.

So is it our participation in the network or the features/functionalities in the network? If the former, we almost have to go back to a Metcalfe-type model. Granted it’s binary (or digital) approach is oversimplified in analyzing the analog nuances of SNS…

Looking forward to a follow-up to this WIP…

I think we’re talking about two different “flaws”, though:

First, an applications “core” value is, of course, distinct. You make this point regarding Flickr. The social network aspect also has a variable value that seems to often be discounted, though. Simply tracking who your connections are is basic, sending messages is basic, but we also have many apps today that let us browse our circle’s content and even use the preferences of our friends as input for recommendations. These different models have distinct basic values that are then amplified by a “Metcalfe multiplier.” This difference in the value coefficient is perhaps your “nuance.”

Second, that Metcalfe multiplier is not necessarily as straightforward as the original network value law. Rather, the “granularity” is in how connections are made (and utilized) in practice. If my site has 100,000 users, but each one has only 2-3 connections, then my multiplier is much lower than if each had 10. Of course, if each user has 1000 connections, then some “nuance” values might be diluted (such as group messaging) but others (such as fashion-related affinities) might scale linearly.

Maybe the best takeaway is that network tracking is a type of value that’s easily portable. If social nets were as sticky as their creators like to tell investors, then we’d all still be using Friendster.

Raymond, your response illustrates the challenge I feel in making this argument. At one level, both Reed and Metcalfe are only interested in valuing a network. They have divorced “content from presentation” in a sense. The phone provides the binary access to the network (call/not call), but of course over the phone you can do many things that are siimilar to things you can do in social networks. However, when you do these things over the phone, you aren’t creating new paths in a network. That you are friends with someone doesn’t mean more or less people will be able to call that person. In a social technology, the process of friending actually does add complexity to the network, increasing paths of transversal for others. Even though the actions are similar, the network (as in the actual network layer) does get more valuable only in one of these contexts. I hope this makes sense. I’ve struggled with the problem of enumeration in trying to keep my thoughts straight on this. I think I need to do some diagrams, really ;)

Of note, the more you write, the more interesting you get. I’ve read your blog and news about your activities for some time now. What I have a hard time grasping about your social networking ideas is, other than volume and opportunity, how have social networks changed us over time? I suggst people have not changed much, just their opportunities to join in on the network.

You mention MySpace giving you the same option as the telephone to connect or not connect, but MySpace also provides “nuance and granularity.” I think the telephone gives you many more options than to connect or not connect. Who you call, what you talk about, plans you make, etc, vary greatly with each caller as, I assume, with each MySpace member. (BTW- the preview stops here, I don’t know if you are getting the rest of this post)

I remember when telephone users were on party lines and one could get quite a bit of local news (gossip) by just picking up the phone and listening. In a way, I equate this eavesdropping with the telephone similar to someone reading your profile on MySpace. With party lines you never knew who was listening in on your conversation and with MySpace and Facebook you never know who is looking at your profile. I’m not arguing our new social networking has not changed us, I’m just not sure how.

It also points to the most interesting prediction, I think…that if we meta-network, the outcome expected from a pure Metcalfe analysis would be a many fold increase in network value. But of course, that might not be the case in real life. If MySpace could suddenly interact fully, at a social level, with Facebook, would that benefit each network? I’m almost certain it wouldn’t. At the same time, a mediated interactivity might produce a great deal of value…this is a ripe area for Web 2.0 sorts. A site that allows us to mediate between our social networks in a robust way (a more “connected” sort of ClaimID) would be an absolute winner.