[Dixielandjazz] Louis Armstrong House Museum on USTREAM: . Jazz

[Gary Lawrence Murphy]

well ok, it goes like this: there's not much point to owning a telephone
unless there are other people on the network ;)

Which is another way of stating what we call Reed's Law that is more
formally stated as follows (sorry for geeking out, but perhaps there are a
few math teachers on the list here ;)

*Reed's law* is the assertion of David P.
Reed<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_P._Reed> that
> the utility <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility> of large networks<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Network>,
> particularly social networks <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network>,
> can scale exponentially <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth>with
> the size of the network.
> The reason for this is that the number of possible sub-groups of network
> participants is 2*N* - *N* - 1, where *N* is the number of participants.
> This grows much more rapidly than either
>
>    - the number of participants, *N*, or
>
>
>    - the number of possible pair connections, *N*(*N* - 1)/2 (which
>    follows Metcalfe's law <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law>
>    ).
>
> so that even if the utility of groups available to be joined is very small
> on a peer-group basis, eventually the network effect<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect> of
> potential group membership can dominate the overall economics of the system.


So my basic defense of Facebook is to say that it embodies Joyce's *Here
Comes Everybody* or more exactly that everyone I need to keep up with is on
*that* network, which annoys me, yes, absolutely, but that's just how it
turned out and now I'm stuck with it.  First it was my daughter, while at
college, and her older siblings soon followed, then *my* parents (or rather
my mom, and dad by proxy, since dad doesn't *do* this sort of e-stuff ;)

and on it went.  since I work from home for a multinational virtual corp, I
don't get out to meet my neighbours much, and my neighbours are all on
Facebook; where I live is pretty far out on the edge of the galaxy, and out
here I can count the fans of the things I like on the fingers of one thumb,
so whereas once upon a time I would join Usenet newsgroups and later
mailing lists, well, Facebook just made it all more convenient because,
yes, the size of the network made the subgroups more numerous, which leads
to more diversity but also makes it easier to *find* new groups.  So I'm
subscribed to other Dixieland bands that I want to keep tabs on
(particularly in the relatively nearby Toronto area) and I subscribe to
several musicians whom I especially respect (and sometimes argue with,
foolishly because I most often will not be winning the argument).  Again
because of the size of the network (now in the billions) Facebook has the
resources that Usenet never had to create various modules for alerts on
concerts and other events, on comments to previous topics, on posts by my
choice of individuals, cellphone alerts etc all of which makes it easier to
keep 'connected'; if my second son has a gig or releases a new track, I
know about it -- if I waited for him to tell me, the cows will be at home
and long since in their beds ;) -- and as the younger still-in-school kids
reach 13, each of them is also on Facebook, which now lets me stalk them
and throw horn tutorials and other 'guidances' at their wall for them and
their friends to deal with.  As a papa, this is a really big perk to the
system.

Now I won't apologize for Facebook.  The interface is awful, from a human
factors point of view, from an information sciences point of view, from any
point of view except their prime directive to keep FB awkward so it
registers the maximum page loads by which they then leverage their
(dwindling) ad revenue.  The host company is sleazy and the adverts are
sleazy, their apps are a minefield showing the very worse of human nature
and overwhelmingly most of the discussion on FB is inane and juvenile ...
just like in real life :)

But as a musician, as a band leader and promoter of community music, I find
I engage the most people through Facebook.  Again, because that's where the
people actually are. So many people these days tell me they never check
email anymore, because most of their online life is on Facebook.  If I post
to our band Facebook page, that one action automatically updates our
Twitter feed which in turn shows up on our regular home page, we are able
to freely post videos and mp3s to our band page, and we can track the
'buzz' that says how many of the readers of these posts have told their own
friends about it, or shared it with them, so that's a bit of an
instant-gratification ego boost.

So I don't know if this answers the question, but it's maybe a start?  Oh,
and yes, I learned about that show from the Louis Armstrong Museum's own
posts to their Facebook, and click on it to get sent directly to the video
on ustream, but didn't realize it had already tagged me as a Facebook
person until I left a comment in the sidebar next to the video (complaining
about the lack of music and preponderance of yakking)

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 6:40 PM, Bill Haesler <bhaesler at bigpond.net.au>wrote:

> Gary Lawrence Murphy wrote:
> > Sorry, I didn't know there were strings attached..
>
> Dear Gary,
> Which raises a query.
> Did you use Facebook to access the Armstrong House streamed programme?
> If so, can you (or other listmates) provide a compelling reason for me to
> join Facebook?
> So far, I have resisted all requests to be someone's 'friend' on it and
> similar sites.
> I have enough to do on the internet without opening what would appear to
> be a 'can of worms'.
> Very kind regards,
> Bill.




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*eso: **EighthStreetOrchestra.blogspot.ca*