the Del.icio.us Lesson

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Joshua Porter is continuing the Structured Blogging (SB) conversation with Joe Reger. In thinking through what it will take for SB will take off or not, he's come up with an acid test, what he calls the Del.icio.us Lesson-

"From now on I’m going to call this idea the “Del.icio.us Lesson”. This is the lesson that personal value precedes network value: that selfish use comes before shared use. We’re seeing it more and more everyday in services like Del.icio.us, Flickr, and is an interesting aspect of networked applications. Even though we’re definitely benefitting from the value of networked software, we’re still not doing so unless the software is valuable to us on a personal level first. And I wonder, how will Google Base fare in light of this? What personal value are people getting out of it? Is it enough to make the service successful?"

Or:

Personal value >> Network effects >> Personal value

Tags: structured blogging