RossMayfieldsThreeScalesOfNetwork

ThoughtStorms Wiki

In outline, he posits there are 3 scales of network

The political network	large numbers of people	Connection here works according to PowerLaws
The social network (around 150 people)	The people you know	Attention divided according to a Gaussian(?)
The Creative network (around 12 people)	Your collaborators in projects	This network is fully connected (everyone talks to everyone)

Quoting him (CategoryCopyrightRisk)

Network Size Description Distribution

Political Network ~1000s Blogs as mass media ower-law (scale-free)

Social Network ~150 Blogging Classic Bell-curve (random)

Creative Network ~12 Blogs as dinner conversation Dense (equal)

A link to a site you read isn't the same as a link to someone you know through their blog or someone you actively collaborate with.
After reviewing data of work relationships, information flows and knowledge exchanges from hundreds of consulting assignments inside Fortune 2000 organizations ValdisKrebs did not see much evidence of power laws in this data. His data is of confirmed ties [both persons agreed/recognized their mutual interactions/flows/relationships] from a worldwide pool of clients dating back to 1988. Of course he found some people were better connected than others, but the extreme hubs found in power law networks just were not evident.
Adapting a famous line from the movie "Blazing Saddles" Valdis concluded: "Power Law? There ain't no stinkin' power law in this data!"
This conclusion fits well with Duncan Watts observation that the more you ratchet up the requirements for a link, recognized connections diminish, and the less you see power laws.
Which makes all the noise about Power-laws off target. I had the pleasure of having a dinner conversation with Clay last night. Yes, he should start a weblog, but he has his own reasons for not doing so yet, which I'll let him explain for himself. But studying the structure of the weblog ecosystem does not have to be an anthropological exercise. Its a wonderful testament to the energy of blogspace that Dave Sifry created a new index to reveal the neglected tail of the Power-law distribution of a Political Network. But we don't have to screw the Power-law or use statistical techniques to reveal a different distribution. This approach has tremendous value in allowing new cream to arise to the top. Both innovations are still attempting to filter the wrong set of data and to generalize all of blogspace. What matters isnt breaking these laws, but the perspective that weblogs, aside from the Political Network publishing dynamics, are communication tools for group forming in Social Networks and Creative Networks. Meg asks the right question: what if these tools can expand our capacities? What if 12 and 150 become averages instead of limits?
Other people are thinking in similar terms from an anthropological perspective as participants. The Social and Creative Networks are where the new and valuable interpersonal connections are being made.
In the coming days I will build upon the Network Ecosystem Model to explain the Distribution of Influence and Distribution of Social Capital. My head hurts, but this is getting interesting.

RichardMacManus suggests a couple more scales : https://web.archive.org/web/20040212011739/http://www.readwriteweb.com/2004/01/18.html

personal (~10)
social (~100)
community (~1000)
"broadcast" (~10,000)
celebrity (~100,000)

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Compare : ChristopherAllen on OptimalGroupSize

Looking at wikis for the different scales : WikisAtDifferentScales

Compare with this discussion of TheLongTail : which http://longtail.typepad.com/thelongtail/2005/05/headism.html which segments the tail into different scales and argues for different economic models at each.

Mayfield bets ClayShirky

http://www.corante.com/many/20030801.shtml#47960

http://www.corante.com/many/20030801.shtml#47841

Comments

http://radio.weblogs.com/0114726/

Network	Size	Description	Distribution
Political Network	~1000s	Blogs as mass media	ower-law (scale-free)
Social Network	~150	Blogging Classic	Bell-curve (random)
Creative Network	~12	Blogs as dinner conversation	Dense (equal)