and I am a one of the Co-founders here at Pinyadda. I will be blogging frequently about a number of topics including news about Pinyadda's progress, our company culture, the social media industry, and a series of posts focusing on social network analysis (SNA).As many friends of Pinyadda know - I am really into social network analysis. Some of you have been unfortunate enough to run into me at a bar and get locked into a conversation about measuring edge values of relationships on different social networks (social networking sites actually). Let me apologize right up front to those of you who have found yourself in this conversation at the Beer Garden on a weekend night - I often forget my passion for SNA is not the most exciting drinking fodder for others. As I have so astutely realized that most people who are interested in SNA with regards to online properties such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinyadda are not usually the people I am watching the Pats, Sox, B's and Celts with, I am going to channel these discussions through our blog here at Pinyadda.
I have recently been reading a lot of blog posts speculating over the valuation of Twitter, most notably Robert Scoble's post that pegs Twitter's valuation to be between $5-$10 billion. Scoble certainly generated a lot of buzz, with more of the comments and reactions seeming to suggest that most people think he is over shooting the valuation a bit at this time. While this certainly isn't the first time someone has taken a stab at valuing a large SNS and stirred strong debate (see TechCrunch's SNS valuation formula here, and an old post from Om Malik about Facebook here that will make you chuckle), this particular post pushed me to share some of my thoughts on the valuation of SNS's that I am writing a whitepaper about in the coming weeks. I personally believe that the more exploration, discussion and debate we can stir up around this topic, the better. While social media has reached critical mass with 83% of Internet users now using social media, we are merely at the tip of the iceberg on what we know about social media use and effective social media measurements will evolve an incredible amount in the coming years.
In an effort to help us develop a better understanding of SNS's and better ways to measure different forms of value on SNS's I would like to start a conversation about what I call the "Value components" of SNS's. Value components are simply the different components that every SNS has that combine to make up the overall value of of a SNS. After several months of on and off research, I have come up with four value components - they are:
- User Behavior
- Content
- Microscopic network design - the design and types of relationships of a SNS
- Macroscopic network design - the overall design, structural activity and use of a SNS
The focus of my upcoming paper outlines in more detail these value components and the next set of measurements I believe we should start exploring in order to have a better understanding of where and how value is generated within SNS's. While this will be an ever evolving project, I would greatly encourage and appreciate the contributions of others as I share my thoughts and findings on this blog.
What are your thoughts on the recent valutations of Twitter and the history of valuations of SNS's to date?
