intertwingly

The May 2003 issue of Scientfic American has an article on Scale Free Networks.  The free information online doesn't do it justice.

This article explores such questions as what happens as new actors come on board with respect to the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game?  Naïvely, one would assume that eventually a seventh degree would be required.  What happens in practice is that  power law effects kick in.  Most new actors end up being supporting actors in a movie with a popular actor, and in the process the popular actor gets more popular.

What are the implications?  Pretty profound. 

For decades the presumtion has been that radio spectrum is scarse and that organizations like the FCC are required to regulate them.  Recently this has been questioned.  Perhaps adding stations increases capacity.  Counter-intuitive, perhaps, but not impossible.

Now lets turn to the realm of people.  Clay Shirkey has ruminated on the relationship between Communities, Audiences, and Scale.  What he says seems reasonable, but the question remains:

What if Clay Shirkey is wrong?