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The phrase you're looking for is "network effect", but I'm not convinced that this doesn't suffer from it. If, as someone else has (fairly convincingly) said el
by gjm11 18y ago
The phrase you're looking for is "network effect", but I'm not convinced that this doesn't suffer from it. If, as someone else has (fairly convincingly) said elsewhere in this HN discussion, there are a bunch of other Facebook apps doing the same thing, do you really expect each user to maintain lists with all of them? If not, the value is greatly reduced.
(I suppose it's possible that different ones consistently appeal to different demographics or something, in which case the effective number of competitors for any given person would be less.)
- mseebach 18y agoYeah, network effect. I seem to recall having heard a more specific term for social networks, but that doesn't matter now. I maintain that the concept is, if not immune, then more resistant to it - I'm not going to a dating site, because the people I want to hook up with aren't there (at least I don't know them to be). They are, however, on Facebook. Of course, and that's where I think you have a point - it's not immune to competition. But once the first of these services get a few breakthroughs, the viral effect is going to be pretty hefty, I think.