[Air-L] What went wrong with Multiply?

[Robert Ackland]

The "economics of superstars" might be relevant here.  Rosen (1981) 
provides a model explaining how differences in success (measured by 
income) in the arts and sport can be far greater than the differences in 
talent.  Adler (1985) presents a model where large differences in 
earnings can exist with no differences in talent.  Adler argues that 
stardom is not due to the stars' superior talent but rather due to the 
need of consumers for a common culture i.e. to consume the same art that 
other consumers do. 

So if we think of social networking site features as "talent", this 
could help explain why some SNSs became superstars despite not being 
better than the others.  Actually the network effect inherent in SNSs 
makes superstar dynamics even stronger.

Rosen, S. (1981). The economics of superstars. American Economic Review, 
71(5):845-­858.

Adler, M. (1985). Stardom and talent. American Economic Review, 
75(1):208-­212.

Rob

-------------------------------------
Dr Robert Ackland
Fellow and Masters Coordinator, Australian Demographic and Social
Research Institute, The Australian National University

e-mail:   robert.ackland at anu.edu.au <mailto:robert.ackland at anu.edu.au>
homepage: http://adsri.anu.edu.au/people/robert.php
project:  http://voson.anu.edu.au

Information about the Master of Social Research
(Social Science of the Internet specialisation):
http://adsri.anu.edu.au/study/msr.php
-------------------------------------

On Thu, 2011-07-21 at 16:29 -0700, Dan Perkel wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 4:24 PM, danah boyd <aoir.z3z at danah.org <mailto:aoir.z3z at danah.org>> wrote:
>
> >
> >  What folks never seem to remember in this space is that it's *NEVER* about
> > the features.  It's about the cultural dynamics.
> >
>
> I would amend that point by saying that the features are a part of the
> cultural dynamics, rather than separate from them. One question to ask is
> what is the "it" that we are talking about.
>
> Dan
>
>
> ------------------------------------
> Dan Perkel
> PhD Candidate
> School of Information, Berkeley Center for New Media
> UC Berkeley
> http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~dperkel <http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/%7Edperkel>
>
>
>
> >
> > danah
> >
> >
> > On Jul 21, 2011, at 10:55 AM, Nicholas John wrote:
> >
> > > I'm doing some historical work on social network sites using the Wayback
> > > Machine and I've come across a site called Multiply. Today Multiply is
> > much
> > > more about shopping than it is a full-blown SNS, but it's fascinating to
> > > look at what it was offering in 2004 - it's About page is basically a
> > > description of what we do on Facebook today.
> > > Most interestingly, though, is the level of granularity it offered in
> > terms
> > > of who could see our posts (not dissimilar to Google+'s circles, which
> > > everyone is so excited about in that it solves a problem in Facebook).
> > For
> > > each post you can specify who can see it at quite a remarkable degree of
> > > granularity (everyone; your network, your contacts, or a custom list). It
> > > also, in 2004, promises alerts when someone in your network does
> > something
> > > (i.e., a news feed).
> > > Was anyone here on that site in those days? Does anyone know what
> > happened
> > > to it given that they really seemed to have online social networking
> > fairly
> > > sussed seven years ago. I'd be very interested to find out...
> > > Thanks
> > > Nicholas
> > > _______________
> > > Dr. Nicholas John
> > > sociothink.com
> > > @nicholasajohn
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > ------
> >
> > "taken out of context, i must seem so strange" -- ani
> > http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/
> > http://www.danah.org/
> > @zephoria
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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