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You're trying to describe network effects without using that term it seems. It's a pretty well documented area and the fundamental idea is the more users, the

by ohashi 15y ago

You're trying to describe network effects without using that term it seems. It's a pretty well documented area and the fundamental idea is the more users, the more value generated (with some sort of exponential benefit). I don't think there is a flaw in the logic that the value of the service is immense when every single person in your community is on it. If you do, could you please explain further? It might be sad or disappointing in your mind that people behave like this, but that's not a flaw in the logic of the behavior, just an opinion on how people tend to behave.

hosh 15y ago
I've never framed it that way. Analyzing this as "network effect" is an interesting thought. But no, network effect is not the key insight I'm attempting to communicate. I'm talking about a generation of kids growing up with technology. This isn't about the value of the network increasing as people use it. It's about a fundamental shift in one's worldview by encountering the technology during formative years. I'm basing much of this on Clotaire Rapaille's work, as described in his book, The Culture Code (http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Code-Ingenious-Understand-People/dp/0767920562 http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Code-Ingenious-Understand-Peop...). Rapaille conducted a study for Nestle. Nestle wanted to open up the Japanese market for hot chocolate. Using his research methods, Rapaille found that adult Japanese never formed early childhood impressions of chocolate, and so introducing chocolate products to Japan would fail miserably. As a result of the study, Nestle shifted its marketing strategy towards introducing chocolate to Japanese children, with the idea that twenty years down the road, they can sell chocolate products when they become adults. Half a million daily Android activations means that a generation of children grows up encountering a personal computer in the form factor of a smartphone. Having come from the older generation, I still picture a desktop computer in my mind when I see the word "computer", despite working primarily with web technologies and cloud servers. To make sure my products do not become obsolete, I have to step into the shoes of someone who grew up picturing "smartphone" when someone says "computer". It means that any web/cloud application I make must be delivered on a smartphone first, with the desktop experience being an after-thought. I can live with that. That will mean twenty years from now, software development will mean keyboard-less IDEs, but I can still live with that. I apply the same frame to these Facebook announcement. What is it like growing up where your first impressions of social dynamics is Facebook? I can separate my online identity because I entered my teenage years in the era of text-based MUDs and email. I had access to the internet when most of my friends do not know what it is. I could and did interact with adults. But a pre-teen or a teenager growing up now, knows that you can't separate the social identity like that. What, are you crazy? What would a society with the unexamined assumption of "Facebook = Social" look like? One that accelerates the general trend for the past several generation: further isolation from the deep wisdom of previous generations; rites of passages conducted by clueless peers that end up in tragedy; a new life stage to describe young adults in their 20s to describe an extended childhood, much the way "teenage" was invented to describe the emergence of an extended childhood. I do not like what I see in this thought-experiment. So while I might embrace the future when it comes with mobile devices, to this ... travesty ... called Facebook = Social, I say, "bah humbug." (And next thing you know, I'll be walking out my front door with a cane, shaking a fist, "Dang kids! Get off my lawn!")
- ohashi 15y ago
  You make some interesting points and I will probably have to check out that book at some point. I will skip the computer/phone stuff, I don't really think we have an disagreement about changing consumer behaviors. Facebook=Social, your conclusions are a bit different than what I perceive. Further isolation from the deep wisdom of previous generations is not the conclusion I would necessarily make. To me it seems they could actually be the most connected to older generations simply because they are sharing a social space (facebook) with them. Sure, not everyone is going to be friends with older generations, but the opportunity is greater, the barrier for communication is lower and older generations are watching them closer than before. Each generation has to go through its own unique rite of passage given cultural, technological and social standards of the time. I think they'll figure it out and make it work, somehow that always seems to happen.
  - hosh 15y ago
    "To me it seems they could actually be the most connected to older generations simply because they are sharing a social space (facebook) with them." You make an excellant point here. I have not seen examples in the wild of the kind of "deep wisdom" being shared across the Internet by private family groups, but that doesn't mean it does not exist. However, I know certain wisdom cannot pass on through the internet, can only pass on by face-to-face. They are typically transmitted through body language, physical motion, and sheer charismatic presence. "Each generation has to go through its own unique rite of passage given cultural, technological and social standards of the time. I think they'll figure it out and make it work, somehow that always seems to happen." This has been true only within the past several generation, and only due to Moore's Law. In other words, this uniqueness for each generation is an aberration. Tribal wisdom used to be told through folklore, myths and initiations. These days, in the mainstream and in geek subculture, we use the word "myth" to mean "superstitious", and "something to dismiss" in contrast to "facts." The surviving stories appear in the better science fiction and fantasy novels and pop-culture TV shows. Comics. Anime. Some movies. A tiny handful of video games. Often tainted by consumer lifestyle values. An example of what I mean, that's meta enough to discuss this within the story: Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age It comes back to what I wrote in that Quora answer. Today, peers, not elders, conduct modern rites of passages. Elders today cannot keep up with Moore's Law, so peers conduct them. You end up losing things that still remain true, generation to generation regardless of technological changes (hence, "deep" wisdom), and you learn them from your clueless peers.

by ohashi 15y ago

hosh 15y ago

I've never framed it that way. Analyzing this as "network effect" is an interesting thought. But no, network effect is not the key insight I'm attempting to communicate. I'm talking about a generation of kids growing up with technology. This isn't about the value of the network increasing as people use it. It's about a fundamental shift in one's worldview by encountering the technology during formative years. I'm basing much of this on Clotaire Rapaille's work, as described in his book, The Culture Code (http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Code-Ingenious-Understand-People/dp/0767920562 http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Code-Ingenious-Understand-Peop...). Rapaille conducted a study for Nestle. Nestle wanted to open up the Japanese market for hot chocolate. Using his research methods, Rapaille found that adult Japanese never formed early childhood impressions of chocolate, and so introducing chocolate products to Japan would fail miserably. As a result of the study, Nestle shifted its marketing strategy towards introducing chocolate to Japanese children, with the idea that twenty years down the road, they can sell chocolate products when they become adults. Half a million daily Android activations means that a generation of children grows up encountering a personal computer in the form factor of a smartphone. Having come from the older generation, I still picture a desktop computer in my mind when I see the word "computer", despite working primarily with web technologies and cloud servers. To make sure my products do not become obsolete, I have to step into the shoes of someone who grew up picturing "smartphone" when someone says "computer". It means that any web/cloud application I make must be delivered on a smartphone first, with the desktop experience being an after-thought. I can live with that. That will mean twenty years from now, software development will mean keyboard-less IDEs, but I can still live with that. I apply the same frame to these Facebook announcement. What is it like growing up where your first impressions of social dynamics is Facebook? I can separate my online identity because I entered my teenage years in the era of text-based MUDs and email. I had access to the internet when most of my friends do not know what it is. I could and did interact with adults. But a pre-teen or a teenager growing up now, knows that you can't separate the social identity like that. What, are you crazy? What would a society with the unexamined assumption of "Facebook = Social" look like? One that accelerates the general trend for the past several generation: further isolation from the deep wisdom of previous generations; rites of passages conducted by clueless peers that end up in tragedy; a new life stage to describe young adults in their 20s to describe an extended childhood, much the way "teenage" was invented to describe the emergence of an extended childhood. I do not like what I see in this thought-experiment. So while I might embrace the future when it comes with mobile devices, to this ... travesty ... called Facebook = Social, I say, "bah humbug." (And next thing you know, I'll be walking out my front door with a cane, shaking a fist, "Dang kids! Get off my lawn!")

ohashi 15y ago
You make some interesting points and I will probably have to check out that book at some point. I will skip the computer/phone stuff, I don't really think we have an disagreement about changing consumer behaviors. Facebook=Social, your conclusions are a bit different than what I perceive. Further isolation from the deep wisdom of previous generations is not the conclusion I would necessarily make. To me it seems they could actually be the most connected to older generations simply because they are sharing a social space (facebook) with them. Sure, not everyone is going to be friends with older generations, but the opportunity is greater, the barrier for communication is lower and older generations are watching them closer than before. Each generation has to go through its own unique rite of passage given cultural, technological and social standards of the time. I think they'll figure it out and make it work, somehow that always seems to happen.
- hosh 15y ago
  "To me it seems they could actually be the most connected to older generations simply because they are sharing a social space (facebook) with them." You make an excellant point here. I have not seen examples in the wild of the kind of "deep wisdom" being shared across the Internet by private family groups, but that doesn't mean it does not exist. However, I know certain wisdom cannot pass on through the internet, can only pass on by face-to-face. They are typically transmitted through body language, physical motion, and sheer charismatic presence. "Each generation has to go through its own unique rite of passage given cultural, technological and social standards of the time. I think they'll figure it out and make it work, somehow that always seems to happen." This has been true only within the past several generation, and only due to Moore's Law. In other words, this uniqueness for each generation is an aberration. Tribal wisdom used to be told through folklore, myths and initiations. These days, in the mainstream and in geek subculture, we use the word "myth" to mean "superstitious", and "something to dismiss" in contrast to "facts." The surviving stories appear in the better science fiction and fantasy novels and pop-culture TV shows. Comics. Anime. Some movies. A tiny handful of video games. Often tainted by consumer lifestyle values. An example of what I mean, that's meta enough to discuss this within the story: Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age It comes back to what I wrote in that Quora answer. Today, peers, not elders, conduct modern rites of passages. Elders today cannot keep up with Moore's Law, so peers conduct them. You end up losing things that still remain true, generation to generation regardless of technological changes (hence, "deep" wisdom), and you learn them from your clueless peers.