The Network Effect

Like a bare-knuckle pugilist, David Thornburg blasted all the excitement in the blogosphere about Web 2.0, and especially Education 2.0 this past Friday by claiming there is nothing new under the sun.  Putting aside the helpfulness of using a screed as a corrective to other screeds, Thornburg's fundamental premise is worth addressing.  Many of the so-called Web 2.0 technologies, (message boards, personal Web page creation, alerts, etc.) have been around for a long time, many of them pre-Web, as Thornburg points out.  But, what Thornburg misses is impact that the adoption of these technologies has had on their potential.  Exponentially more people are using peer to peer information sharing technologies than ten, or even 5, years ago.  The network effect created by this adoption has had, not just a quantitative, but a qualitative impact on their value.  From my perspective, the evolution of "Web 2.0" technologies over the last few years in and of itself would be worth a good deal of excitement.   But, without a doubt the power of network effect certainly means that we are in a different era with an enormous amount of potential -- and that is something worth heralding.