January 29, 2001

5:18 PM

Reed's Lawis about how, under certain conditions ("Group Forming Networks") the value created by a network, rather than being quadratic as predicted by Metcalfe's Law, becomes exponential. What's interesting is his discussion of the kind of networks he's talking about (chat rooms, eBay and … MetaFilter?) and what happens in them. Trouble is, I can't quite follow him! Can you?
posted by rodii (1 comment total)

In order for the number of total groups to grow exponentially, so too must the number of groups each member participates in. I, for one, am not particularly eager to be an active member of 2^{n-1} groups for n large.

posted by grimmelm at 7:24 PM on January 29, 2001