Network fluidity is the key
Posted by matt on 20 Aug 2006 | Tagged as: Jarvis, buzzmachine, docsearls, blogs, davewiner, socialnetworks, kentnewsome, a-list
Newsome counters a Jarvis post on Social Networks by saying he is singing to the choir :
As as far as niches go- the entire blogosphere is a niche. The tech blogosphere, where most of us hang out, would be a sub niche. A niche inside a sub-niche is not a niche. It’s a clique. That’s a quotable excerpt that will almost certainly not make its way up the mountain.
I don’t normally subscribe to the A-List argument, but it is true that, as in life, there are cliques in Social Networks.
Some are more enviable than others and some are more open to outside input than others.
But Kent has been linked to nearly a thousand times and I see Doc Searls and Dave Winer in that group.
Between both of my blogs, I’ve been linked to about one-tenth of that amount and linkers have included Jarvis, Searls and Winer.
I think they are doing an excellent job.
So is small the new big?
Yes, but look at it this way. I think it compliments Jarvis’s Law of Open Networks.
The Law of Network Fluidity: The number of working affinity groups within a social network should increase proportionately with its number of nodes. All nodes must be able to freely pass into and out of existing and new affinity groups.
If not, then you may have an A-list syndrome.One last point of clarity. I do not mean that a network cannot have a private or exclusive group. Just that there is no unintentional blockage that might signify a network design flaw or central control.