Keith Teare has published The first law of RSS (updated) which says:
The value of edge published data (say a post) is directly proportional to the velocity of it’s consumption and re-production, that is, the number of input and output operations it goes through each day.
And he’s asking for feedback. I think he’s right and that this is really a derivative of Metclafe’s Law which says that:
… the value of a network equals approximately the square of the number of users of the system (n^2).
As the barriers and costs related to self-publishing have dropped to nearly zero, the sands are shifting yet again. Many worlds are feeling the effects: mainstream news publishing now needs to deal with blogs and “citizen journalists.” The video/music/radio/media and entertainment world need to deal with non-label artists, podcasting, video, and P2P systems. The classifieds and on-line commerce world will need to deal with new challenges as well.
Keith and Mike are preparing to launch edgeio, which is designed to fit nicely into this new world. I’ve seen an early version of it and they’ve asked that I serve as one of their advisors. So consider that your disclaimer.
I really, really, really believe that few companies have begun to grasp how this new reality changes the landscape they’re used to controlling. I’ve been evangelizing some of these ideas within a few groups at Yahoo in the past year but should probably step up that effort (especially since Keith calls us out!). I’m getting a stronger sense that 2006 is the year when it will start to matter in a big way.
Jeremy Zawodny is the author of the popular Jeremy Zawodny’s blog. Jeremy is part of the Yahoo search team and frequently posts in the Yahoo! Search blog as well.
Visit Jeremy’s blog: Jeremy Zawodny’s blog.
