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This is a ridiculous assertion because Facebook usage patterns do not follow a power law. As a simple calculation, Facebook has a 5000 friend limit so all 100,0
by shalmanese 16y ago
This is a ridiculous assertion because Facebook usage patterns do not follow a power law. As a simple calculation, Facebook has a 5000 friend limit so all 100,000 "superusers" would all have to be hitting up against this limit and all have completely mutually non-overlapping friend groups to reach out to the 500M current Facebook users. This is an absurd contention.
In reality, there's approximately 250M regular users and 250M light users which means each regular user would only "earn" $10 if Facebook brought them on as employees. That makes this a significantly less compelling argument.
- fwdbureau 16y agoThe only thing is, he's not advocating the collectivization of FB (that would be stupid), but merely calling for new companies to enhance the user-generated-content model by sharing the wealth. Maybe the Diaspora people should look into this?
- cabalamat 16y agoIf a company relying on user-generated content did do this, it might well give them a useful advantage. Though there would probably be problems with people gaming the system.
- rpbertp13 16y agoI agree with you that Facebook usage patterns do not follow a power law, but he doesn't imply that all of Facebook's 500M users are directly connected to the superuser group. He doesn't rule out the possibility that many users won't derive value from the them. There could only be 100,000 superusers (although this strikes be as an obscenely low estimate too) but have only a subset of Facebook's engage with their content.