I attended a very good discussion at MobileCamp on Mobile Social Networks, which was run by Keith Erskine of padpaw. We ended up talking a lot about facebook, which seemed to be on a lot of people’s mind. When talking about Linkedin and Facebook, the overall vibe I got was that people liked keeping their social networks separate in all their various forms.
In terms of social netwoking sites, Linkedin was for business, and Facebook was for friends and family. Recent feature additions or announcements for upcoming features on both sites are making them look more like each other. Linkedin recently added a photo feature and plans on opening up their platform. Facebook added groups and has a limited profile features, which comes very close to allowing different groups to get different versions of your site (although it’s not quite here yet.) Even with these features, it seems as if the group wanted to keep them apart. (There was the sense in some people are reaching the limit on how many sites they wanted to maintain.) It seems easier to me to maintain one, rather than several. Although I guess people may not want to have all their data locked into one privately owned site. This point brought up protocol, standards, and Open Social, which I want to address in another post.
People often use different email addresses for work and personal use, I check a handful accounts everyday. Since getting my Blackberry, I can finally synch my computer and phone address books, which was a simple but powerful change. Now, all my devices share the same information and it is now stored in multiple places.
Recently, I’ve received work email through Facebook which complicates my email archiving system. Friends have invited me into Linkedin. Although some relationships are clearly defined as work or personal, social circles are usually not that discreet. Their edges are porous and overlap, and people migrate from one to another. What is also interesting is how the bucketing of people now can get directly verbalized. That is, accepting an invite to Linkedin from a co-worker and then denying the invite into Facebook.
Why do people like to keep their social circles separate some of the time and not others? It is a personal preference? Or are there user experiences (for lack of a better word) involved which have an effect if we want to group them together or not?
Noah Brier posted an interesting link recently to an article claiming that Metcalfe’s Law, which famously has been paraphrased to be the value of a network exponentially quadratically grows with each additional node, is wrong. This is a provocative thesis because the law is widely trumpeted in all that is good about the Internet.
In the theoretical long term view, networks with more nodes will encourage late adopters to join (and pay.) People often cite the instance of email, the rates of people setting up (and paying for) email accounts in the 1990s rose much faster after it was possible to communication with people outside a user’s ISP, being AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy, or an academic institution. However, network adoptions plays out differently in other cases.
The disconnect here may be that in the definition of value, more specifically value by whom. In the valuation of a network, the network of 100 is worth more than a network of 10. According to Metcalfe, it’s worth 100 times (10^2) the smaller network. For the consumer, it is clear that the value of the telecommunications network grows with each new person, especially if the costs for the user doesn’t increase. However, consider combining access of two competing networks from the perspective of the network operators. From this angle, the smaller network will clearly see more benefit than that larger network, as the article suggests. Further, both operators will see an increase in the costs associated with network traffic (from hardware to customer service,) with no new paying customers. If the operators are charging an unlimited usage prices, there is little upside to combining networks, which shows why network operators tend to resist interoperability. Why would a market leading operator take on additional cost with increased revenue and help a smaller competitor?
Coming back to the definition of value, the value of the network actually doesn’t change if the willing to pay (i.e. the ability to extract fees) from the customers of the network. I’m still trying to grapple with the difference between the value of the network from the customer versus the operator. That is, the problem is that as although the value of a larger network may grow, there willingness to pay by the customer does not. In fact, it may even shrink, which was noted in a MobileCampNYC talk by some smart folks at Air Arts last Saturday. Consumers have been conditioned to expect prices to fall, especially in the area of telecommunication services, even as nodes (and the value of the network) increases. Is the reason that customers don’t want to pay for that additional nodes because the new nodes are less valuable to the customer as the article suggests? Is it a matter of marketing conditioning from other services industries associated with the properties of the economics of scale that prices for services should go down over time?
Although the article was published last year, the valuations for networks will only receive more scrutiny after Facebook’s USD$15 billion valuation, which is about 25 times what News Corp paid for MySpace, which has more than double the users than Facebook. Expect more discussion to follow.
The Apple developer’s kit for the iPhone and the Google phone is getting a lot discussion in the press. They are just two examples of that “innovation” has been getting attention recently. Despite all the discussion on innovation, I don’t feel like there is a standard language or measure to accurately describe what’s going on. Here are some graphs that I’ve been carrying around in my head, which are trying to categorize innovation or at least start to recognize patterns. As a proxy for innovation, I’m using hacks, which I defined broadly, as modifications to a product or system or service, for some unintended use, application, or outcome by the original source. The relationship between hacking and innovation probably deserves its own post, which I’ll try to get to soon.
In the graph, the y axis is roughly the number or frequency of hacks, which doesn’t have a scale, because it’s based on theoretical model. The x axis is time and show how the number of hack change over time. The graph isn’t always upward because hacks can become obsolete or blocked.
Graph 1 Creative Destruction: Schumpeter‘s ideas on creative destruction talks about how a disruptive technology or change affects the rate of hacks and innovation can be caused by events. An obvious example is Facebook’s decision to allow third part developers to create applications for its site. Overall, this situation doesn’t depend on moving from a open to a closed system. Sometimes a technical innovation that allows for innovation. For instance, movable type and wordpress blogging software made the web much more hackable by removing the need to know much about html and ftp to start a blog.
Graph 2 Eventual Obsolescence shows how a product or service, which is very hackable, can become less so over time. Many factors can be the cause of this change. Sometimes it is a matter of the product becoming more sophisticated, which makes modification harder for the amateur hacker. For instance, a Ford LTD station wagon from the 1980s was much easier to hack than a 2008 BMW 5-Series 535XI Wagon, which uses more synthetic materials and is loaded with electronics. In this case, automakers didn’t make create more sophisticated specifically to stop hacking. Open system become closed intentionally, as seen in the telephone system which was originally much easier to hack than it is today.
Graph 3 Build-A-Better-Mousetrap is the typical game that closed manufactures or service providers play with hackers. This is often the case for apps to break DRM or download songs off an iPod, where each software upgrade plugs up the hole, or in some cases turn your iPhone into a brick. People are trying to innovation, but their progress faces impediments. This start and stopping isn’t always a bad thing. Spam, besides masking originating email addresses, is essentially a hack of text (and interesting notion within itself,) where malicious email is created by altering text in order to fool spam filters into thinking its contain is legitimate.
Graph 4 Network Effects is a model of an open platform, such as Facebook, after they released their developer’s kits. The idea than an open platform will create value by increasing the users options, which will lead to more users. More users, in turn, will encourage more innovation, or so the ideal case goes. Nokia has an developer’s kit and Apple intends to do the same for phone. However, this example isn’t necessary an ideal as well. Too many apps creates too many choices, which can confuse and ultimately drive away users.
Identifying these patterns and clusters are only the first step. The steps will probably involve identifying outcomes and finally measures (even qualitative ones) to describe what happened. So, there is a lot to do, but this is a start.
Here is a photo I took earlier this year at the then brand new Bangkok International Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK). I was thinking about the image today, while doing some reading on social network theory. Airports are transportation hubs and feel weird when they are empty, because they are not acting out their function as place of transit. Shininess didn’t help matters at all either.
Some new points have instant connections while others don’t. I’m interested in how new points form and get connected into a network. Some points appear with a social network in place, say a baby born into a large family. Other points have connections which exist in other networks and their entry into a new network gives them instant connections as well. Steven Colbert made 1 million facebook friends in a week, which shows spill over from other networks. This is all obvious, but I’m curious if there are ways to show how different networks interrelated.
I finally got around to reading Elizabeth Currid’s book, The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art, and Music Drive New York City, which argues that these creative industry are an important economic force in the city and social networks that allow it to function. The book is a breezy read, with an academic context but written for lay people. Thankfully, Currid references in an academic style. Many of her citations which left out of books aimed at the general public have been added to my to read list. Books in this style are very important because they counter the increasing obscure that academic research often takes has it plummets in sub-sub genre navel gazing. Although I have some issues with the book, I’ve been thinking about it for a week, which is a sign that it was worth reading. Aside from a few factual errors that slipped though the editorial process, (the Roxy was located in Chelsea, not the East Village) the book ends up leaving me wanting a lot more exploration on the merit of the social networks which promote the creative production and why that is good for New York.
She sets out and shows how the creative industries of New York, provide real economic value to the city’s economy and represents a growing percentage of the labor force, which quickly and adequately does in Chapter 3 of the book. She then spends the rest of the book describing how the social networks of these creatives (the people working the industries Currid explores) help produce output that drives these industries, by interviewing people who have successively used this networks to advance their careers. Also she shows the creative industry has value, she doesn’t explain why it is valuable over other uses of resources. That is, the creative industry and its use of social networks is assumed to be worth continuing because of its past existence. However, this assumption doesn’t question the dependence on the social network itself. Is this dependence on being able to capitalize on social networks efficient, fair or democratic?
By only interviewing the success stories, she risks overly celebrating her subjects like Quincy Jones, Jeffry Dietch, and John Varvatos. A more complete study needs to include examples of failure. The barriers to entry of these networks are only slightly mentioned. She quotes of a successful graffiti artist, Colt45, who mentioned that other talented colleagues did not achieve success or fame, while other less talented ones did. Interviewing those who lost out, I suspect reveal a new narrative. Last year, the painter, James Rosenquist gave a telling interview (around 30:30-31:45) in which he discusses being selected by Henry Geldzahler to be the now legendary show “New York Painting and Scuplture: 1940-1970” at the Met.
He goes on to explain that the his success has a lot to do with luck, and recounted that he knew many talented artists who never were able to achieved fame. These experiences only get brief mention the Warhol Economy but deserve examination, because they shed insight on why we should ultimately care about these social networks and ask if they are better systems to encourage cultural production.The middle chapters of the book describe the interaction with creative workers and the gatekeepers of culture, be it fashion, music or art. Here, the analysis misses an opportunity to show how digital technology is influencing production of culture and the tradition powers of the gate keepers. These are relevant changes, because the fall of the cost of digital media production and the rise of digital social networks are having effects which simultaneously work for and against the gate keepers. This simultaneity of opposing forces caused by digital networks has been discussed here in previous posts, as well, and I will admit is a personal interest of mind. In this case, decreases in the cost of audio recording equipment, the rise of peer to peer networking and increases in the access to high bandwidth, are creating opportunities for musicians to circumvent traditional music labels. Further, promotion of music has similarly seen a massive increase in the ways a musician can self-promote her music as well. When anyone with a personal computer can record and distribute music, the creators are seemingly no longer as dependent on gate keepers found at big music labels and mainstream publications.On the other hand, with an abundance of choice, we often look towards these taste makers as trusted brands to do the filtering for us, which in turn increases their power. Disruptive forces in the music industry, such as MySpace and P2P file sharing, radically change the importance of the nodes of that a band’s social network. Currid interviews the independent band, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and describers their rise of success from in part, being in New York and playing shows in the Lower East Side clubs. While this is undoubtedly true, here is a slightly different narrative from metafilter:
“Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are a band that, less than a year ago, were making music without the help of a record label, pressing CDs themselves and selling them at concerts and on the Internet. Then the following happened: June 9: Dan Bierne writes about the band on his MP3 blog, June 14: Pitchfork Media posts a review of the song “In This Home On Ice”, June 15: Blogger Gothamist posts an interview with the band, June 20: Blogger Stereogum announces the band’s show at the Knitting Factory, June 21: Gothamist reports that David Bowie was in the audience at the Knitting Factory show, and June 22: Pitchfork posts one of a slew of reviews of Clap’s first album. Now, they’ve been named to dozens of critics ‘best of’ lists, they’re playing Conan and Letterman, and are about to embark on a new tour.”
Pitchfork, which Currid mentions, is not just a well-regarded online music review site. It was started in 1996 by a recent high school grad in Minnesota, and then relocated to Chicago. The digital social networking component was both decentralized and an important component to their eventual success. It also suggests that changes in social networks can have effects on the culture economy and therefore, according to Currid’s research, New York City’s overall economy which depends on cultural production. The reason acknowledging the influence of digital production and communication is of value, is that it is changing the status quo, which Currid’s proposals seek to maintain. Policy makers have a tradition of regulating for the past, certainly not the future, and rarely for the present. While is it impossible to predict, closely studying the present is useful, of which William Gibson is often attributed for stating something to the effect of, “the future is here, it’s not just widely distributed yet.”
As the book is mainly a descriptive text, rather than normative (or proscriptive) I’m wondering what Currid feels about the current social network, gatekeeper system that is in place. The title of the book is telling, as Warhol redefined not only the art of his time, but also idea of fame, wealth and celebrity of living and working artists. In his aftermath, the idea of the starving artist is passe. Not only the rapidly rising cost of living in New York that is changing, but the expectation of what an artist’s standard of living should be. It’s hard for me to tell if $300 bottle service is good or bad for New York’s cultural economy, because she makes it sound so alluring.
Currid concludes by suggestion a few ways that local government can support artists and designers through subsidized housing and studio space, as well as, more open policies toward nightlife. However, with this suggestion, it’s not clear to me that they would work, or if we want them to work. I wish she included more than a paragraph reviewing of what other countries (Canada, Australia and New Zealand) are doing in supporting the culture economy. I’m curious to know how can we learn from cities with better funded social-welfare programs, such as Tokyo, Paris, Amsterdam, and London strengthen or weaken her ideas. While what Currid documents in important, there seems to be a lot more work to be done.
So, many it wasn’t the Chinese government re-directing Google, but domestic ISP, who may or may not have been doing it intentionally. RConversation does a good job at pointing out how the speed of the blogosphere tends to amplify rumors and let gut reactions bubble up. After the first reporting of the Baidu redirects last week, I wonder how many people followed up to find out what really happened, or did they just move to the next media blitz with th e rest of us?
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My last post to flowtv.org described the work by Kevin Werbach, a legal professor at the UPenn’s Wharton School of Business. I first heard about him at this year’s Telecommunications Policy Research Conference. He is looking at how the different forces pull the Internet together as well as pushes them apart. I wrote about how it got me thinking about how the Internet is fractal, and how important is it to have models like Werbach’s to help explain it.
At first, because the Internet works so well as a decentralized network, Werbach’s suggestion of the idea of a fragmented network comprised of archipelagos and walled gardens seems unlikely and unwanted. However, Techcrunch is reporting that in China, attempt to access Google and Yahoo are getting redirected to the homegrown (and approved) Baidu. A chance of this kind of fragmentation is quite real, which could also mean that the ICANN testing of non-Roman language domain names might be too little, too late.
Kevin Martin, chairman of the FCC just released a plan proposing to allow for more consolidation of the media industry, by relaxing the rules governing media ownership. The biggest move would be to remove the prohibition of owning a newspaper and television station in the same market. In the age of online news, cable and web tv, the rule might not have as much relevance as it 30 years ago. Despite the decentralization of media content that the Internet encourages, big media production is still plays a crucial role how the society functions. The vertical and horizontal integration of the media industry is only going to constrict the flow of information. With an election coming up, I’m not sure why this is being brought up now. When the former commissioner tried the pass a similar measure, it failed against a loud dissent.
After months of complaints since the launch of the iPhone, Apple just announced the a Software Developer’s Kit will be released in February. Mac Rumors noted that the letter from Jobs suggested that they might use a digital signature to control who can develope applications, a strategy the Nokia is using.
For this reason, and the iPhone’s relatively small user base, I’m not sure that we’ll see the applications on the scale of Facebook. However, I’m looking forward to what software developers can come up with.
That being said, iPhone apps might be more profitable, because people are getting more used to downloading and paying for apps and content to mobile phones.
A recent Telephia report on mobile applications, found that in Q2 2007, 5% or 13 million mobile users downloaded a mobile app, which generated $USD 118 million. Compare that with Business Week reporting the estimate that the entire monthly Facebook revenue from widget advertising is less than $USD 1 million, or $USD4 million for the quarter.
