Social network entities and headcases

We usually think of social networks as collections of people that are linked - each person is a node in the network, and some nodes are hubs, or nodes that have many links. A couple of years ago when I was thinking and talking about group relationship management, I realized that, in the context of a social network, a group could be seen as an entity similar to a person, in that it can also be a node, generally perceived as a hub (because it has many connections, defined for a group as memberships). So you could define an entity called "node" that could be an individual or a group. This is something Silona Bonewald wanted to include in the technology for the League of Technical Voters. I was just talking to Skip Baney about this concept and how it might relate to "identity 2.0". Identity thinkers and doers are trying to create a framework for identity management to facilitate data storage in one place and to allow an individual greater ownership and control of her personal data - similar to the W3C's P3P approach. An "entity-based social network," as Silona called it, could facilitate the creation of individual and group bundles of network-relevant data that could live outside any particular social network system, but could plug into any, if the standards were acknowledged and incorporated. I think this would have value, and probably should have been part of the Internet's architecture earlier on. It's harder to overcome legacy fragmentation at this point. One interesting related project: Headcase Manufacturing, where my former FringeWare partner, genius coder Paco Nathan, is working with my pal Mark Meadows to create autonomous avatars. As I understand it, the idea is to create a single avatar that can operate in multiple virtual worlds. If you're interested, it looks like they'll be beta testing soon...

The People Law

Britt Blaser has a good and useful post about "People Law" vs "Power Law." This is practice, not theory. [Link]

There are five principles I’m playing with lately:

  1. The size of your audience confers limited power
  2. A network’s value is the square of its nodes (Metcalfe)
  3. Network nodes are significant only when they’re verbose
  4. Most conversation is among nearby nodes
  5. Only interactions count, and the richest count most
... what’s the importance of a big audience of passive readers? In the age of Big Media, It was the only thing we could count, but those times are months behind us. In social networks, everyone is a potential participant, but if your 10,000 readers leave 100 comments but don’t take your ideas and run with them, so what? Leaving a comment is a lot like leaving, because Embrace is not the same as Extend.

Future's So Bright

Barbara Kooyman's featured in this week's Austin Chronicle cover story, which talks about her years as one half of Timbuk 3 and the genesis of her latest project, Texamericana, an online store that sells CDs and potentially other media, and gives part fo the proceeds to public radio.

"Texamericana is based on giving away 100% of the projected proceeds to things that will make your grandmother smile," grins Kooyman. "It protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press by supporting listener-sponsored radio. It relieves social insecurity by contributing to a community organization that feeds the hungry or houses the homeless. It supports environmental integrity which will give all of us a livable, breathable planet."

Recording artists, radio stations and music business associates – check out the Texamericana Social Hour at Threadgill's, followed by live music. "Some folks still believe in the power of music."