| Autor: Jacek Unold | 101 |
Strony: 101-112
pełen tekst
THE APPLICATION OF A NETWORK EFFECT IN THE GROWTH OF A VIRTUAL COMMUNITY
Summary
Social portals are the main exemplification of the dynamics of virtual communities in cyberspace. The main mechanism behind this phenomenon is a “network effect”, based on the observation that the worth of the application increases as the number of participant rises. Its theoretical foundations are described by Metcalf’s Law and Reed’s Law. The network effect in cyberspace brings about a new dimension of the socialization phenomenon and it fully capitalizes on the rule of six degrees of separation. LinkedIn and Facebook are among the best known benefi ciaries of this mechanism. Also Google introduced first applications based on the dynamics of virtual communities, i.e., PageRank, AdWords, AdRank, and AdSense.
pełen tekstTHE APPLICATION OF A NETWORK EFFECT IN THE GROWTH OF A VIRTUAL COMMUNITY
Summary
Social portals are the main exemplification of the dynamics of virtual communities in cyberspace. The main mechanism behind this phenomenon is a “network effect”, based on the observation that the worth of the application increases as the number of participant rises. Its theoretical foundations are described by Metcalf’s Law and Reed’s Law. The network effect in cyberspace brings about a new dimension of the socialization phenomenon and it fully capitalizes on the rule of six degrees of separation. LinkedIn and Facebook are among the best known benefi ciaries of this mechanism. Also Google introduced first applications based on the dynamics of virtual communities, i.e., PageRank, AdWords, AdRank, and AdSense.