How Metcalfe’s Law can work against you

How Metcalfe’s Law can work against you
Andrew Chen is my hero. He does a fantastic job talking about the math the drives social network growth and decline. Snip… Does everyone remember Metcalfe's Law? It was formulated by Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet and co-founder of 3Com, who stated: The value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users […]

Andrew Chen is my hero. He does a fantastic job talking about the math the drives social network growth and decline.

Snip…

Does everyone remember Metcalfe's Law? It was formulated by Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet and co-founder of 3Com, who stated:

The value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users of the system (n²).

For those that are interested in the math behind it, basically the idea is that if every new node in the network connects with every pre-existing node, then as you gain nodes, you non-linearly increase the number of connections that everyone has with everyone else.

That's pretty neat, and for the social networking folks who are aggregating large audiences and treating their businesses like communication utilities, it's both logical and helpful to think that these social communities abide by network effects like Metcalfe's Law. In fact, it's a DIRECT reason why these networks want to get as big as possible, and have a social graph that's as comprehensive as possible, and why they should ultimately be opposed to Data Portability. And I think we'll see these players' strategies ultimately reflect these strategies.

A commenter goes on to about companies being a leaky bucket. You either spend more money driving visitors to your site or you focus on retention, plugging the hole in the bucket. Great analogy.

Metcalf's law works for dating sites but I disagree that dating sites should not embrace data portability, instead opening up their API's to share data with social networks and other dating sites.

Source: feeds.feedburner.com

Matchmakers To Introduce Quality Certification System In Tokyo
TMC NET — May 23 — A total of 2,871 complaints over marriage services were filed with the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan in 2007, surging about 80% from 2000. An industry association set up by eight major marriage-services, including O-net Inc. and Zwei Co will introduce a system to certify their quality of service. Under the new system, companies will be checked if their service is meeting a service guideline compiled by METI and the industry association. According to METI, an estimated 370 to 3,900 firms are providing marriage services, with service content ranging from traditional meeting arrangements to Internet-based matchmaking. About 600,000 people are said to have used the services of these companies. FULL ARTICLE @ TMC NET
Source: feeds.feedburner.com

Why Was I Dissed?
Alexis at Whywasidissed wrote in to say: Dating can be difficult, and watching a relationship – or something that could have been a relationship – come to an end is even more difficult. These difficulties are compounded by the fact that often, you're left without answers. Calls go un-returned. Emails, unanswered. It's like one half of the […]

Alexis at Whywasidissed wrote in to say:

Dating can be difficult, and watching a relationship – or something that could have been a relationship – come to an end is even more difficult. These difficulties are compounded by the fact that often, you're left without answers.

Calls go un-returned. Emails, unanswered. It's like one half of the relationship fell off the face of the earth.

But it doesn't have to be that way. You can get the answers you're looking for with WhyWasIDissed.com. We use e-mail to contact the gal or guy who's been giving you the brush-off, ask them a few key questions, and report back to you with our findings. So you'll have a better answer about what went wrong, and how to avoid those pitffalls next time.

She brings up an interesting point. I was talking to a bunch of single people at a party recently and the conversation came around to what happens after you go on a first or second date and you realize that it's not going to work out with the person.

Some people admitted they let things cool off by simply not contacting the person. Others said they would at least appreciate an email saying "I'm just not feeling you." Whywasidissed takes care of the latter situation.

As a third party service there are issues of trust and accountability that would be alleviated if the service was baked directly into dating sites.

I'm not sure I would want a third party reaching out to someone I went on a date with and the trail turned cold after a few dates. How would the other person react to being contacted by a website asking them why they didn't want to continue the relationship?

Would you respond to an email asking you about a person you dated a few times?

Source: feeds.feedburner.com

How Metcalfe’s Law can work against you
Andrew Chen is my hero. He does a fantastic job talking about the math the drives social network growth and decline. Snip… Does everyone remember Metcalfe's Law? It was formulated by Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet and co-founder of 3Com, who stated: The value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users […]

Andrew Chen is my hero. He does a fantastic job talking about the math the drives social network growth and decline.

Snip…

Does everyone remember Metcalfe's Law? It was formulated by Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet and co-founder of 3Com, who stated:

The value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users of the system (n²).

For those that are interested in the math behind it, basically the idea is that if every new node in the network connects with every pre-existing node, then as you gain nodes, you non-linearly increase the number of connections that everyone has with everyone else.

That's pretty neat, and for the social networking folks who are aggregating large audiences and treating their businesses like communication utilities, it's both logical and helpful to think that these social communities abide by network effects like Metcalfe's Law. In fact, it's a DIRECT reason why these networks want to get as big as possible, and have a social graph that's as comprehensive as possible, and why they should ultimately be opposed to Data Portability. And I think we'll see these players' strategies ultimately reflect these strategies.

A commenter goes on to about companies being a leaky bucket. You either spend more money driving visitors to your site or you focus on retention, plugging the hole in the bucket. Great analogy.

Metcalf's law works for dating sites but I disagree that dating sites should not embrace data portability, instead opening up their API's to share data with social networks and other dating sites.

Source: feeds.feedburner.com

Matchmakers To Introduce Quality Certification System In Tokyo
TMC NET — May 23 — A total of 2,871 complaints over marriage services were filed with the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan in 2007, surging about 80% from 2000. An industry association set up by eight major marriage-services, including O-net Inc. and Zwei Co will introduce a system to certify their quality of service. Under the new system, companies will be checked if their service is meeting a service guideline compiled by METI and the industry association. According to METI, an estimated 370 to 3,900 firms are providing marriage services, with service content ranging from traditional meeting arrangements to Internet-based matchmaking. About 600,000 people are said to have used the services of these companies. FULL ARTICLE @ TMC NET
Source: feeds.feedburner.com

Why Was I Dissed?
Alexis at Whywasidissed wrote in to say: Dating can be difficult, and watching a relationship – or something that could have been a relationship – come to an end is even more difficult. These difficulties are compounded by the fact that often, you're left without answers. Calls go un-returned. Emails, unanswered. It's like one half of the […]

Alexis at Whywasidissed wrote in to say:

Dating can be difficult, and watching a relationship – or something that could have been a relationship – come to an end is even more difficult. These difficulties are compounded by the fact that often, you're left without answers.

Calls go un-returned. Emails, unanswered. It's like one half of the relationship fell off the face of the earth.

But it doesn't have to be that way. You can get the answers you're looking for with WhyWasIDissed.com. We use e-mail to contact the gal or guy who's been giving you the brush-off, ask them a few key questions, and report back to you with our findings. So you'll have a better answer about what went wrong, and how to avoid those pitffalls next time.

She brings up an interesting point. I was talking to a bunch of single people at a party recently and the conversation came around to what happens after you go on a first or second date and you realize that it's not going to work out with the person.

Some people admitted they let things cool off by simply not contacting the person. Others said they would at least appreciate an email saying "I'm just not feeling you." Whywasidissed takes care of the latter situation.

As a third party service there are issues of trust and accountability that would be alleviated if the service was baked directly into dating sites.

I'm not sure I would want a third party reaching out to someone I went on a date with and the trail turned cold after a few dates. How would the other person react to being contacted by a website asking them why they didn't want to continue the relationship?

Would you respond to an email asking you about a person you dated a few times?

Source: feeds.feedburner.com