When Rajesh pointed out the site couchsurfing it made me think. Here is something that I cannot imagine being done without the internet. It took just a few people to build this community and bring so many people together, in such little time. In addition if you read about when it was almost destroyed by a disk crash and brough back to life by the community – it brought out the lasting nature of the creation. I thought wow, yet another example of metcalfs law.
But there is a combination of 4 laws (maybe you guys know some more) that all interact to bring about the incredible power on the internet.
Here they are:
Moore’s Law : Computing : Powers doubles every year.
Guilder’s Law : Communication : Bandwidth doubles very 9-12 months
Kryder’s Law : Storage: Capacity doubles every 24 months
Metcalf’s Law : Community: Value is proportional to N**2 where N is the number of participants
I often forget to factor in these laws when distect an idea and am then surprised by the results – that so few can achieve with so little.
It would be interesting to examine companies and ideas to see which laws are primarily responsible for their growth.
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Tandem is a new vehicle for entrepreneurship that focuses on an emerging class of software and Internet companies that, with small teams and well under $1M, can get substantial user adoption in a six to nine of months. The Tandem principals act as an extended team for each set of founders and also provide funding in small doses to these nimble businesses.
You can learn more about tandem at our
websitePrior, I spent the first ten years deep in technology, working at Xerox PARC, HP and Oracle. I was then on the founding team at Webvan, where I helped build technology that drove a service that combined the challenges of Amazon and FedEx. I experienced the entire cycle of a company from zero to $4 Billion and back in a few short years. The journey taught mea lot about customers (acquisition and retention) and about operations (costs and excellence). I then co-founded Business Signatures, where I played a key role in every aspect of the business, including defining, marketing and selling the product until the company’s acquisition by Entrust in 2006.
I have a B.S.E.E. from Indian Institute of Technology, an M.S.C.S. from Rice University, and an M.S. in Management from Stanford University.
The views expressed on this site are my personal views, and do not constitute an offical opinion of any company or organization.
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Reed’s Law is been left out which is what is current rage with all social networking sites 🙂
value proportional to 2^n.
Just to add up. Here’s an interesting post on Metcalfe’s Law discussing the pros and cons, with a write-up by the man himself. He talks about the law and it’s application on social networking sites.
http://vcmike.wordpress.com/2006/08/18/metcalfe-social-networks/