1.27

As far as the network effect is concerned, our society is more than likely most familiar with it while using social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter.

On Facebook alone there are millions of users and many of varying ages. When social networking sites like this started out they were prey to teenagers joining them (ie my generation during the time) who simply found the sites, lied about their ages and began to create a circle of friends who they would stay in contact with. Eventually, they would move on from network to network, especially when more and more adults began to become users of the network they were on. Now it is not at all rare to find on Facebook people in their seventies (proof: my grandparents) on Facebook using the site to keep in touch with their families and friends. I've witnessed daily friends from the past finding one another and communicating once more.

Sometimes I think we seem to forget amidst all the pointless 140 character meanderings that comprise Twitter or the automated posts on the Facebook homepage about how someone did on a Facebook application and the numerous suggestions sent to other users to play these asinine creations, is that these sites were founded to create a network of people.

It is just one of the many ways we are all connected.

Cheers,
Eric Summers