Stephen Downes

This criticism of the concept of social software is based on the premise that, for social software to be useful, people have to use it, and that there is a disincentive for major users - the "social entrepreneur" - to use it. The author explains: "I have hundreds of contacts, but the value I derive from introducing people far exceeds any advantage I would gain by entering them into a system somewhere. Moreover, the value I derive from my hard-earned network is sacrified for the 'good' of the system. If anyone, or even just my associates can find out everyone who I know and everything I know about them, I am no longer indispensible. What would possess me to give away my personal 'competitive advantage'?" This is, of course, just another variation of the argument for content hoarding. It doesn't succeed either. If the value you create is based on 'knowing', then your livlihood will be undercut by someone who has the same knowledge - in this case, the same (or similar) network of contacts - and who shares it freely. Moreover, the people you know, who derive value from your introductions, will value more a network that creates more introductions, so they will tend to gravitate toward networking with people who share their networks. That's why I share things like my OPML file (see above) and encourage my subscribers, if they want, to share their contact with me. My livlihood doesn't depend on my being the only person in my network to read, say, Roland Tanglao (via whom this item was discovered). But it does depend on my being able to learn from such people, people I would only discover via an open network. As Jerry Zawodny says, don't think of the social network as the product, "Start thinking about how adding a social networking component to existing systems could improve them." AUMSINISM. Just like content. Update: More from Richard Stokes here.