Keith Teare has published The first law of RSS (updated) which says:
The value of edge published data (say a post) is directly proportional to the velocity of it’s consumption and re-production, that is, the number of input and output operations it goes through each day.
And he's asking for feedback. I think he's right and that this is really a derivative of Metclafe's Law which says that:
... the value of a network equals approximately the square of the number of users of the system (n^2).
As the barriers and costs related to self-publishing have dropped to nearly zero, the sands are shifting yet again. Many worlds are feeling the effects: mainstream news publishing now needs to deal with blogs and "citizen journalists." The video/music/radio/media and entertainment world need to deal with non-label artists, podcasting, video, and P2P systems. The classifieds and on-line commerce world will need to deal with new challenges as well.
Keith and Mike are preparing to launch edgeio, which is designed to fit nicely into this new world. I've seen an early version of it and they've asked that I serve as one of their advisors. So consider that your disclaimer.
I really, really, really believe that few companies have begun to grasp how this new reality changes the landscape they're used to controlling. I've been evangelizing some of these ideas within a few groups at Yahoo in the past year but should probably step up that effort (especially since Keith calls us out!). I'm getting a stronger sense that 2006 is the year when it will start to matter in a big way.
Posted by jzawodn at January 06, 2006 08:47 AM
my understanding is that this company is doing structured blogging, as an end-run around centralized classifieds sites. correct me if this is wrong.
really, how hard is it to publish on craigslist? while a completely distributed, ad-hoc network of transactors plays to long-tail appeal, the public won't grok it - aggregation services and brand still matter, and the "roll your own" trust model doesn't seem to hold water.
this model works if there is a reliable and neutral trust mechanism, but chargebacks on a credit card are lossy - new transactors aren't clued in to the audit trail.
I wouldn't call it "structured", but you've got the right idea.
As a top independent blogger AND Yahoo guy you ARE the microcosm for this Jeremy so keep us ... "posted".
Seems to me we're not even close to "great" information environments for various groups of humans.
Forums are almost all crap now that the smart people all went off blogging.
Even good blogging is one sided, often superficial and fairly unstructured, and rarely "user centric".
Websites are structured and often info rich but (I include my own sites) working way too hard to please Google, & Yahoo & revenue sources.
Where are all we/our users in all this mess?
Surfing for something that isn't there yet.
"I really, really, really believe that few companies have begun to grasp how this new reality changes the landscape they're used to controlling."
Or how fast it changes.
Does anyone remember Alvin Toffler's prophetic book, "Future Shock"?
News travels and money changes hands now at the speed of electricity. There are feedback loops in today's information and fiscal landscape that creates oscillations almost noone ever expected.
Tapping the online web of news on a single cyber strand creates reverberations in a companies image and public perception that can make a company rich overnight, or ruin it in a heartbeat.
I'm not surprised that the vast majority of people, especially older established public relation firms and departments, can't keep up with it. These days you need a network traffic analysis guru more than an ad agency to promote yourself properly.
