Re: size and network value

On 1 Jul 2010, at 18:05, Dan Brickley wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 1:17 AM, Harry Halpin <hhalpin@ibiblio.org> wrote:
>> On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 6:11 PM, Henry Story <henry.story@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Just a thought following todays talk.
>>> 
>>> Why not get some networg graph experts to help us work out what the value of a global
>>> social web would be? There is a lot of research in the field of network theory, and there
>>> may be some interesting insights to be had from those areas.
>> 
>> I agree - you think there would be someone who can judge information
>> "liquidity" as Tim Anglade put it and imagine some bright economicst
>> could figure it out.
> 
> I disagree that this is worth our attempting, at least for the report.
> 
> "The value of a global social Web" is a monsterously vague item. It
> would be hard enough to to price something concrete like "two million
> laptops, configured with Ubuntu version x and wired up with XMPP
> accounts". If we can say what it is, we can't reasonably ask someone
> else to slap a price tag on it...
> 
> Not that it isn't worth talking about, and I won't object to seeing
> mail traffic on the topic. But nobody is in a position to answer such
> questions really...

What I am suggesting is not to put a $ amount on it, which would be crazy, but
to see how much bigger it is, can be, and what types of things it enables perhaps.

So Metcalf's law is very simple in showing that the possible number of connections
grows with the square of the telephones. It certainly helps to understand the value
of having a global telecommunications network.

What kind of simple thing of that sort can we say with social networks? If everybody can connect
to everybody, then clearly there are a huge number of groups that can exist that don't or cannot
with the current infrastructure.

How many more are there? Instead of trying to measure the value of each such group,
which is not of interest here, one could just look at the upper limit, the outer limit.

Henry


> 
> Dan
>

Received on Thursday, 1 July 2010 16:18:54 UTC