Friends - Power - Social Software - Everything?
by Rob Paterson
As the web moves from a village - 60,000 blogger in 2002 - to a megacity - where will the structure be found? Where is the value? Fast is working on that problem through behavioral search. I would like to add to that the core human organizational design.
How will be get through all the noise that is building on the web? How will we find the value along the Long Tail as content grows to the infinite?
Many of us agree that in a world of infinite content, that the value will no longer be in the mass market but in the niches in the Long Tail.
Our intuition tells us that it is in the niches where the scarcity and hence value lies - attention, attraction and hence energy. If this is true, then how do we find the right niche and unleash this power? What is the best filter?
I think that our best filter is our small circle of trust. It has both the power and the reach. I believe that this “circle of trust” is defined by our biology and not by software. Real “friends” are not an infinite resource but exist only in small numbers that fit the “Magic” or “Dunbar Numbers” that in turn fit the Fibonacci sequence.
So here is the data - based on the early part of the Fibonacci sequence and where I have assumed that the Circle of influence may be to the Power of 4.
So a circle of 8 - the ideal Trusted Space - can attract, affect and influence 4,096 people. If I have 144 in my circle we can reach just over 400 million others. BUT my bet is that just as the reach goes up, the gravitational pull goes down.
2 - 16
3 - 82
5 - 625
8 - 4,096
13 - 28,561
34 - 1,336,336
55 - 9,150, 625
89 - 62, 742,241
144 - 429, 981, 696
Notice anything? As we look at the sequence we see a Pareto or power curve - it’s the Long Tail.
So what do I also “see”?
I think that there are two power curves here. One is reach and the other is power or gravity.
The greatest gravitational pull is at 2 - the most effective reach is 144. There is likely a “sweet spot” along the curve where reach and pull are best found in concert. My bet is that it is in using the circles of 8 - 13 - 34. You can reach more than a million people with 34 and you can really attract 4,096 powerfully at 4.
If my intuition is correct, then the full power of social software might be revealed as we explore these numbers and their meaning. Does this not put a new face on marketing? Does it tell us how we will find and attach to content in a universe of infinite content? Does this say something about how to organize anything?
I am a historian by training - can you help by testing this and also by drawing it?
