ExperienceCurve by Karl Long

How we value social networks is obviously in it’s infancy but as social networks and metaverses like SecondLife start to approach the size and scale of towns, cities and countries surely we need to think about how they are valued. Recent reports focus on primarily size (population), and growth (population growth), which when put in the context of these massive societies seem rather one dimensional.

It seems to me that social networks are very much like countries, with their own cultures, their own values, their own laws, their own goals, and different roles you can play in them. This is one of the reasons I think population and population growth are not great measures for social networks, third world countries can grow quickly, but their populations can be impoverished, their economies broken. This gets be back to my ongoing thought about looking at the “value” a social network produces is a very important measure, and using the analogy of countries or citys it becomes easier to comprehend.

When I was growing up I used to see advertisements for a new city that had been created in England, it was called Milton Keynes, according to wikipedia this was designated a “new town” in 1967, and therefore had to advertise to get people to move there. This seemed like a strange concept to me when I was growing up, a town that needed to advertise, I figured towns just existed. Social Networks like Milton Keynes need to attract new people to their new societies, but then what makes the town valuable after everyone gets there? Why did people continue to move to Milton Keynes after the advertising stopped?

If myspace had a GNP what would it be? Number of friends?
If flickr had a GNP? Number of photographs added? Tags?
If Yelp had a GNP? Reviews created?

Do countries ever consider how many “eyeballs” they have?