The Internet's Kevin Bacon Effect: Any Web Page Can Be Accessed From Any ...
Scooped by Martin (Marty) Smith |
Linked: How Everything Is Connected To Everything Else
Barabasi's book is a more important read than is portrayed here. There are key concepts for every Internet marketer. First let's discuss the 6 degree rule.
In the experiment that found the six degrees a psychology professor asked a student to get a letter to someone he didn't know in Boston via loose connections. The letter moved across the country in six steps all right, but the key piece of information is many of the routes went through a handful of uber-connectors.
We all know "uber-connectors"; those with loose connections may number in the tens of thousands. This idea became the basis for the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon game. Turns out every actor or actress have worked with someone who has worked with someone who has worked with Kevin Bacon within 6 loose connections.
Here again the same "uber-connectors" showed up. If you read Barabasi's Linked, and I strongly recommend it to any Internet marketer, you will discover concepts that explain these "uber-connectors" or "Hubs". Barabasi believes any content network will "hub up". The destiny of any content network is to create uber-connector hubs.
Amazon is a hub. Amazon may be the hub of hubs. Within every business segment there is an "uber-connector" or Hub that is hard to displace. Hard to displace because once "hub-ness" is attained it is self-perpetuating based on Barabasi’s "rich get richer" concept.
The "compound interest" of content networks is the links that carry influence (Klout). Hubs or "uber-connectors" work less to gain and/or maintain these advantages than their competition must work to gain them.
The "rich get richer" inherent (meaning mathematically determined) nature of content networks is why every website wants to achieve "authority" status. Authority websites accrue more and more faster and faster even as they do les and less. Let's call this new idea the Authority = More, Faster, Less rule.
It's all connected • the hip bone is connected to the knee bone and everything happens from there • Read this assessment from Martin • he's a smart guy