An interesting discussion of Metcalfe’s Law Metcalfe's Law: more misunderstood than wrong?
The industry is at it again–trying to figure out what to make of Metcalfe’s Law. This time it’s IEEE Spectrum with a controversially titled “Metcalfe’s Law is Wrong”. The main thrust of the argument is that the value of a network grows O(nlogn) as opposed to O(n2). Unfortunately, the authors’ O(nlogn) suggeston is no more accurate or insightful than the original proposal. ... The typical statement of the law is “the value of a network increases proportionately with the square of the number of its users.” ... The unit of measurement along the X-axis is “compatibly communicating devices”, not users. ... Title of graph: "The Systemic Value of Compatibly Communicating Devices Grows as the Square of Their Number"Tweet Posted by mofoghlu at March 2, 2008 4:34 PM | TrackBack