1. With which one of the network laws do you most agree? Why?
All of the network laws were obviously created by knowledgeable individuals and make sense. However, Sarnoff's Law makes the most sense to me and is the easiest to understand. With Sarnoff's Law, the value of the network is being measured through the number of people on it. This applies to television and radio. Therefore, the larger number of people that are viewing or listening to a program, the more valuable it is because it's more popular.
I also understood Metcalfe's Law but it had too many critiques. We learned that Metcalfe's Law measures the number of possible cross-connections that grow as the number of computers in the network increases. According to this law, the more connected people, the more valuable the network. However, there has been critics that say this term "value" is not clearly defined. In Sarnoff's Law, television and radio's worth can really only be measured by how many people view or listen to the program. It makes sense that if few people are watching the show, it must not be as valued by the people. But when it comes to telecommunications and the Metcalfe's Law, "value" could mean many different things. This law also assumes that connections in the network are all equal when some connections could be weaker, making the network less valuable.
Lastly, Reed's Law focuses on social media (or web 2.0) and claims that the usefulness of a network increases exponentially with the size of the network. This law focuses on how powerful social media is with the many interactions a person can encounter. Apparently, in order to measure a network's usefulness, you should raise 2 to the "nth" power ("n" being the number of members). Though this is fairly simple to understand, I tend to get confused easily when it comes to math so I still feel that Sarnoff's Law is the simplest and makes the most sense.
2. How do you think people might get their information 5 years from now?
The way that our society and technology is moving, I feel that we will become even more of an Internet-based society. Television shows are being streamed online using Hulu or Netflix, the radio is being listened to online using Pandora or Spotify, newspapers are being published online as well as magazines. We are becoming an Internet-based society and in 5 years I believe most everything will be only found on the Internet. That is where we will turn for information with laptops, cellphones, tablets, etc. being our gateway to this other world. Due to the hectic world we live in, we will only turn to places on the web that give us information fast and to the point. We will most likely turn to social media before we read an article from an online newspaper.
I agree with you about the distribution of information. It is interesting that you brought up the use of radio and the newspaper. I honestly forgot that people even listened to the radio anymore. I am so used to pandora and spotify that the radio has become antiquated for me. I think your point about the ease of accessibility and the speed of information is important. I think that is why people do not watch television anymore or listen to the radio as much. Both of these media have commercials that people must wait through. I know that I won't use hulu sometimes because I am too impatient to sit through the 30 second commercials.
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