One for the metrics fetishists
The more open the network, the more valuable it is — but the harder it is to own, and thus the harder it is to value in old terms of ownership and market cap. That’s what really argues against the IEEE authors. They are trying to put a corporate value on networks. You can’t. That’s like trying to value air… or the internet. They defy ownership.
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[T]he problem is that all these calculations leave out the most important X factor to which Metcalfe alludes: affinity.
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Network value = the sum of the value each member of the network places in it.But, of course, that is incalculable (what, again, is the dollar value of love?).
What is it that we used to say to one another, Adriana? That these people who don’t ‘get it’ are obsessed with measuring that which they cannot control? Sounds about right to me - still.
Filed under: Blogging, Communication, Friends, Life, Measurement, Metrics, Technology
Heavy.
Yes! Jeff Jarvis puts it well. And we have been saying these things to anyone who’d listen for a long time now. It can be rather frustrating to hear others making the same points that we have been making for the past 3 years as if they just discovered something new. That said, I am pleased that the understanding of the issues is spreading, I just wish it wasn’t so arduous to make it so. :-)
Well, I’d be deluded if I thought we were the only ones who had these ideas, ever, but it’s nice to see it expressed so eloquently by Jeff (who, I am sure, had it figured out a long time ago). I’m just surprised that he hasn’t got tired of saying it and trying to make people see it, which I did some time ago. I figured out - later than I’d have liked, but at the right time for me - that you can talk in concepts and ideas all you want, but most people (me included) are more able to understand the concepts once they’ve seen them in practice. So the infuriated “Blogs are not the panacea for the world’s problems!!!” that I got from someone when I suggested internal team blogs became “Wow, I can’t believe how well this internal blog works” once I’d just broken down and set one up. As you say, though, wish it wasn’t such hard slog…