The one network law that I most agree with has to be Sarnoff's Law. This law states, in a nutshell, that the value of a network increases linearly with the number of people on it. Now I agree with this for a variety of reasons. One, is that when you look at networks from an advertising point of view. Facebook's value has taken off in the past five years and that is due to the number of users. These users attract advertisers thus increasing the value of Facebook's network tenfold. On the other side of the coin, look at Myspace. This website had all of the value when it hit it's peak in popularity in the mid 2000's. After the drastic decline in users, Myspace became obsolete and essentially abandoned. This is due to the fact that Myspace failed to capitalize on the value that they had. Network values are always changing and it can disappear as easily as it appears. If Myspace had sold more advertising and kept evolving they would of held on to this ever changing value a bit longer.
When looking at where people will get their information five years from now, I see two major sources. One being the traditional media with a slight twist. The twist being the online sources provided by today's traditional media outlets will become the main source of news information. I could see today's traditional news casts being moved to completely online where you have to go to that affiliate, or broadcast company's website to view it. The second source, which to me is unfortunate, will continue to be social media. People do consider most things they see on social media as truth or fact regardless of sources. Yes, I have been guilty of it too, but unless we teach people to look past the outer layer then this second source will persist and grow.
I really enjoyed reading about your thoughts on Sarnoffs Law and the comparisons you drew from it. I also used the example of Facebook and MySpace, and I think we could both agree Sarnoffs Law will continue to hold true going into the future. By bringing more people to a network, you can increase content, creativity, and popularity, so it makes sense that these networks want to attract as many people as possible. I also agree with your views on the future of communication, and do not see social media going anywhere. With more and more people becoming connected through technology such as phones and tablets, it is clear that social media will only get more popular. Overall I thought you had some great points and drew some interesting connections from what we have learned.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the fact that network values can change very easily and it all depends on the relationship between users and the methods a network uses. As you summarized, when there is more people, there is more advertising and it brings even more people and so on. I also feel bad that social media will be the dominant source of information.I think as long as the medium remains the same (social networks), there won't be any other information source which people would be interested in.
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