Coming Soon: More Social Networks Than People
Mar 3, 2007With Cisco's aquisition of Five Across and Tribe, Ning's idea that 1, 5 or even a 100 social networks is not enough seems to be taking off. The next thing you know, there will be more social networks than there are people on the planet. It happened with web pages, then web sites, it's happening with blogs now, and soon it will be social networks. Don't believe me? That's what they said about web pages - and now there are already more web pages (~200B) than all the people who ever lived(~106B)!
Anything that becomes stupid simple to create will proliferate on the internet. A blogger friend of mine once said that he started blogging because "he realized he could." Most people didn't think they needed a blog till they realized that they could indeed have one if they wanted to. Similarly, a lot of people will soon be realizing that they could start a social network. Such fun!
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3 Comments
March 3
Hi Kingsley -- I agree, it's a fun time!
Interestingly there is a mathematical model that would justify your theory that there could be more social networks than people. It's Reed's law -- the number of groups and subgroups you can form out of n people is 2^n (actually, 2^n - n to eliminate the single-person subgroups). The number of social networks in the world will be proportional to that over time. It's a fun Excel charting exercise to model that out :-).
March 5
Marc, Reed's Law is fascinating. I had Metcalfe's law in mind when I wrote the post, but Reed's is way more appropriate. This is reason to be even more optimistic!
March 8
It should be 2^n - n - 1, due to an empty set, and n singletons like you mentioned. :D
Sorry, I had to brag. haha. :)
Good analogy.