| |
 |
19 August 2003 |
In his blog GimJim wrote an article on the 27th of June about Social Network Analysis and the power of the nodes with high inbetweenness - in a scale free network such as the peer-to-peer networks of Kazaa.
I believe the RIAA is applying social network analysis (SNA) in its current battle against P2P systems. This piece in Time dated 4 August 2003 is telling:
[The RIAA] has declined to say whom it is targeting or how many more subpoenas it plans to issue... "We're focused on the supply side," RIAA president Cary Sherman says. "If you can get at the 10% of people who are offering 90% of the files, that makes a significant dent."
However, that comment has revealed their game plan. The P2P network that is Kazaa presumably reflects the underlying scale-free nature of the Internet as a whole. Now consider this PhysicsWeb article from 20 July 2000:
Barabasi and co-workers studied the effect that removing random nodes from a scale-free network had on the ability of the remaining nodes to communicate with each other, and the degree to which the network became fragmented. They found that the network's performance remained constant, even after they had removed as many of 5% of the nodes, and that it was resistant to fragmentation. But when the team simulated an intelligent attack by targeting the highly connected nodes, it was a different story: the network became fragmented very quickly, and with 5% of the nodes missing, its ability to communicate was halved.
By breaking the Kazaa P2P network into isolated islands, they greatly reduce the utility of the network. College campuses with student networks are potentially superhubs, and have thus been targeted as well, though via college administrations. I therefore conclude that the RIAA strategy is solidly grounded in recent discoveries about scale-free networks.
More on scale free networks blogged here.
This happened at 12:47:04 PM or
|
|
(more recent publications on the Small World theory and work)
Excerpts: We find that successful social search is conducted primarily through intermediate to weak strength ties, does not require highly connected "hubs" to succeed, (…). By accounting for the attrition of message chains, we estimate that social searches can reach their targets in a median of five to seven steps, depending on the separation of source and target, although small variations in chain lengths and participation rates generate large differences in target reachability. We conclude that although global social networks are, in principle, searchable, actual success depends sensitively on individual incentives.
You can acquire the full article called An Experimental Study of Search in Global Social Networks, written by Peter Sheridan Dodds, Roby Muhamad, Duncan J. Watts, from Science. Check the publication of the 8th of August, page 827-829.
(from: Complexity Digest)
This happened at 12:32:32 PM or
|
|
Innovation and Small Worlds: Bridging vs Merging
One last set of comments on Andrew Hargadons How Breakthroughs Happen: As I said before, I'm focused primarily on his idea that innovation happens when technology brokers bridge otherwise disconnected worlds. Hargadon wants firms to allow technology brokers to move within the small worlds" that already exist in most firms: There are many places within firms between project teams, between divisions, between plants where competition, politics, geography, and lack of communication have created small worlds by creating gaps in the flow of ideas and people across the organization."
So when innovation fails or isn't happening, does that mean these gaps are being mis-managed? I think so, and to understand that better I think it's important to look at the characteristics of the gaps themselves. [Corante: IdeaFlow]
Renee Hopkins is reading the "How Breakthrough happens.." book which was delivered to me by Amazon just earlier this week. As a small experiment, I will track his vision and comments on the actual book and context in which it was written - then read the book and respond to it (or blog about it).
This happened at 12:24:35 PM or
|
|
©
Copyright 2005 Erik van Bekkum.
|
|
Weblog
