Peer to Peer

Daily Ink

Stored in: In Situ

Posted On: July 02 2006

By: Bryan Partington

The most interesting thing about interestingness is how it's changed over time.

When Flickr first launched its "Explore" feature it was routinely dominated by the same photographers. Day after day. Maybe there's something funny in the donkey feed, because these days that isn't really the case.

This is, in part, a function of Flickr's increased growth and diversity of talent. However, popularity does beget popularity and the interestingness algorithm seems carefully calibrated to counteract that effect. What could have instituted a 'star system' on flickr instead stands as a bulwark against one.

Speculative meanderings about the interestingness algorithm aside, what makes social networks robust is their redundancy, the symmetry in their constituent relationships, their relative lack of hierarchy.

Conversely, the traditional model for media distribution is a massively asymmetrical, anti-social network, where a small number of producers broadcast unidirectionally to a large number of consumers. Capital, infrastucture and programming formats allow the producers to meet deadlines and produce accessible content. This keeps the network activity bubbling and securely entrenches the core nodes in the network.

In networks where the distinction between consumer and producer is far more ambiguous, there are no core nodes.

.. but there's none of the ballast either.

Little or no money, fewer defined formats, but still a need for sustained activity and accessible content. The question becomes one of meeting these criteria without the support structures of traditional media.

Services like Flickr are primarily necessary for the structure they impose, how they define and guide use, and most importantly for how they compensate for lulls in creative output.

In many ways Flickr is 'flat', with nearly 80% contact reciprocity. This decentralizes activity and helps to stabilize the network. If a user's creative output ebbs, they can return to the site and play the consumer for a while. Further, when the latest photos from one's contacts are consolidated, one user's waning output is balanced out by increases in others'. This means that there is always a consistent and reliable level of activity to return to, a vital component in maintaining cultural continuity and vibrancy.

It's pretty cool to think of how social networks ensure that 'something is on' within a system where no one has financial incentive to post, because the community spirit this engenders is profound. The sense of common experience, of fellowship, that one is amongst one's peers however distant they may be.

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