Metcalfe's Law

Analysis: Facebook and the Inverse of Metcalfe’s Law

Authored by Scott Karp on October 24, 2007 - 8:08am.
“The value of a social network is defined not only by who’s on it, but by who’s excluded.”

This quote is from futurist Paul Saffo in an Economist article that makes a contrarian case for Facebook, in part by arguing that as social networks grow, they will eventually encounter the inverse of Metcalfe’s law, becoming LESS valuable with each new user rather than more valuable.

Mark Cuban: Metcalfe's Law and Its Impact on Online Video

Authored by Mark Cuban on July 10, 2007 - 3:16am.
Don't remember where I saw Metcalfe's law mentioned, but it got me thinking. Metcalfe's law states that the more nodes connected to a network the more valuable the network is. Its a simple yet brilliant concept. Since i have some time on my hands recovering from my hip replacement, I decided to ponder what laws applied to the value of video content and its viewers.