Stephen Downes on The Personal Network Effect

Stephen Downes has written an informative post regarding the value of networks, The Personal Network Effect. He points out that the an individual's network will be of value if the information derived is maningful and is characteristic by semantic relevance.

The number of persons in an individual's network will determine the effectiveness of the network. More friends does not necessarily equate to a more effective network. As a result he feels that networking applications should be designed with these characteristics in mind, thus giving the end user more control over their network and its derived usefulness. He points to valuable articles by John Black and Etienne Wenger concerning common ground and communities of practice in his post.