I agree the most with Reed's law.
It states, "The value of a network increases dramatically when people form subgroups for collaboration and sharing."
I have seen this play out in so many areas of my life. Mostly with popular sayings, people, and actions. All these things in our society are instantly posted online and can go viral in seconds. One example we came up with in class was the Alex from Target scenario. One user posted a picture of a target cashier that was then reposted by other friends of the users. From there, multiple users thought the cashier was attractive and interacted with the post. Soon, the picture had been posted all across the internet. Now, the cashier is famous and has been on many talk shows. Because of twitter, it allows multiple users that are not close to each other become connected. With the power of collaboration and sharing, a couple users can push a post to become viral. If the sharing is effective and channeled clearly, all of social media can be reached.
I believe people will continue to deliver information through the internet in some fashion. I think most media outlets such as magazines, newspapers, television, and radio are seeing the power of internet. They are still able to survive, but all of them rely on the internet for sending their messages as well. The internet is becoming the sole top spot for information to be delivered and received. What I believe will continue changing is the medium in which we access the internet. Today, we have smart phones, tablets, and laptops. In five years, it is impossible to guess the technology we will have. Most of it could be holograms, or even chips that allow us to access the internet with our mind. The possibilities are endless on what science can come up with.
I really enjoyed your post and the way that you expressed Reed’s law. I like your examples and the main idea and what you are expressing the way that the internet is able to advertise/market anything and everything. The connection, collaboration, and sharing that you mentioned has been a way that we communicate and the way that businesses have reached out to their clients or obtained new clients. I also agree with you about the way we will communicate and how the internet will continuously be a vital part of our everyday lives. The internet will continue to grow and it will only get bigger and faster in the future.
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ReplyDeleteI remember when the Alex from Target thing was big. I mentioned it to two friends at lunch the day after the picture was initially posted and they both immediately knew what I was talking about. It was shared at an astronomical pace, and one "Alex" was discovered through his online accounts his followers increased dramatically. The official Target account even tweeted something like, "We're glad he's on our team, too" with a photo of an Alex nametag. The smartest companies are the ones that take advantage of those unexpected moments and roll with them to attract unexpected attention.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that Reed's law is the most effective. It is amazing to me that things can spread so fast. Also I believe that things become quickly irrelevant because of other posts becoming viral so fast. The "Alex from Target" already seems like an outdated reference. It would be interesting to study the lifespan on a post like the "Alex from Target" and what contributes to its fall in viewers.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with your points made on Reed's law. It did make me think a little about how we view "fame" now. For the individual, yes, its cool to get some attention on a national scale, especially considering they probably would not under "regular" circumstances (whatever they are anymore). But on the other hand, it almost seems strange that people can gain almost instant fame for not really doing anything special, but they got to be one of the lucky ones that made it big on the internet.
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